Adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Rwanda: A Case Study of Gicumbi District Region

Abstract

Conservation agriculture (CA) is described as a farming system that is founded around three principles: minimum soil disturbance (reduced or no tillage), keeping a permanent soil cover (with crop residues, cover crops or both) and plant species diversification (plant associations and sequences). Little to no information has been documented about conservation agriculture adoption in developing countries, such as Rwanda, with especially no information about its hilly and climate-varying part to which the Gicumbi district belongs. This study is targeted towards ascertaining the level of CA adoption in the Gicumbi district in relation to the socioeconomic status of the farming population, to suggest the relevant strategies for accelerating CA adoption specific to this region. The sampling technique used was a non-discriminative, snowball-sampling one, eventually gathering data from 500 households in three sectors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using household questionnaires. Adoption of CA was related to the knowledge acquired during training and hands-on work on demonstration plots. Some farm-level constraints found were little to no material, few extension services and market problems. The impacts attributed to the use of CA were soil and productivity improvement.

Keywords

• conservation agriculture
• farmer’s perception
• adoption
• socioeconomic
• minimum soil disturbance
• crop rotation