Conservation agriculture in Babati District, Tanzania
People mainly rely on the agricultural sector in the poorest countries of the world. An increased agricultural production can therefore have a great impact on individuals as well as on whole communities in many countries. A majority of the Tanzanians live in rural areas and rely on the agricultur...
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| Formato: | Otro |
| Lenguaje: | sueco Inglés |
| Publicado: |
2006
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/11867/ |
| Sumario: | People mainly rely on the agricultural sector in the poorest countries of the world. An
increased agricultural production can therefore have a great impact on individuals as
well as on whole communities in many countries. A majority of the Tanzanians live in
rural areas and rely on the agricultural sector. Today the agricultural production in
Tanzania is rather low and Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a concept that is
promoted as a way forward for small-scale farmers in Tanzania.
This study that was carried out in Babati District, Tanzania and was one out of several
studies that were conducted on CA in Africa before the "Third World Congress on
Conservation Agriculture". The aim of the studies was to improve the understanding
and documentation of past and current CA experiences in Africa.
This study aims to describe the CA-related practises that have been introduced in
Babati District and why they had been introduced. It also aims to describe the reasons
why farmers choose to adopt or not adopt CA practice in their farming and the
impacts CA has had on small-scale farmers livelihood and on the environment.
The last decade several new agricultural practises have been introduced in the district,
of which a number can be said to be CA-practises. The introduced agriculture
methods have had a positive effect on yields, work load and environment. The smallscale-
farmers livelihoods have also improved in Babati District as an outcome of the
new agricultural methods. The diffusion of the introduced methods was limited due to
among others availability of implements, economical factors and finite dissemination
of knowledge.
The low soil fertility was a limiting factor of the production in the district and
recycling of plant nutrients to the arable land was low. In the study, soils from three
different cultivation systems have been compared to investigate how different
treatments have influenced soil fertility. Farm yard manure and intercropping with
legumes showed to improve the fertility and application of rock phosphate increased
availability of phosphor and increased soil pH. When only rock phosphate was
applied production rate were low and amount of nutrients was decreasing or showed
no significant change. Intercropping under leguminous Faidherbia albida gave the
highest maize yields and also showed the highest level of P and N. |
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