The FAO Office of Evaluation has just recently conducted the final evaluation of the Conservation Agriculture Scaling Up (CASU) project in Zambia, funded by the European Union, which had the objective of sustainably increasing crop productivity and diversity through widespread promotion of the three principles of conservation agriculture across the entire country, targeting over 300,000 smallholder farmers. The main focus of the evaluation was to assess the extent to which conservation agriculture has been sustainably adopted by Zambian beneficiary farmers, although the evaluation also sought to assess what outcomes were evident (positive and/or negative) from the project’s activities, and what were the impacts on food security, income, and soil health.
The evaluation used a mixed methods approach – using qualitative and quantitative methods – to assess project results. The evaluation team met with over 650 Zambian farmers across the different agro-ecological regions in Zambia during April 2018, conducting focus group discussions and key informant interviews with project stakeholders from FAO, the government, private sector and civil society. In addition, the University of Zambia, on behalf of the FAO Office of Evaluation, conducted a household-level impact assessment survey to collect quantitative data amongst a sample of over 300 farmers, in order to assess progress against the baseline survey that had been conducted in 2013. Meanwhile, the evaluation drew upon the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) data collected by the project team throughout the project’s implementation period.
Farmers met by the evaluation team reported (in focus group discussions) that food security and dietary diversity has greatly improved, and that nutrition objectives are on track. The focus on including women in the project activities has led to more legumes being grown and maintained for home use. In the focus group discussions there was clear feedback that legume quantities and varieties have increased. Many households grew small quantities of groundnuts earlier (typically considered a woman’s crop), but with the focus on legume production by the project, farmers noted that they now have a wider range of crops – now they are growing soya, cowpeas, pigeon peas, Bambara nuts, other bean varieties as well as groundnuts, depending on the area. They said that earlier they had many hungry months most years, but since CASU began they have maize year-round, and most households also have legumes available year-round (or at least ten months of the year). Many households have also begun to grow vegetables at home.
One of the project’s impact indicators was household dietary diversity (HDD) and women’s dietary diversity (WDD). This was assessed in the project baseline questionnaire in 2013, by asking farmers to select from a list of 9 food groups those they had consumed in the past 24 hours. At the time of baseline data collection, the average Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) was 7.79 (out of a possible score of 9) and the average Women’s Dietary Diversity Score (WDDS) was 5.09 (out of 6). These were already quite high (therefore there was limited room for improvement), but showed increasing trend over the project period. The project’s monitoring data (collected at regular intervals between 2013 and 2018) showed an improvement in HDD and WDD. Final scores reported by the project monitoring system were 8.31 and 5.41 respectively.
The findings of the University of Zambia household survey corroborated the projects monitoring data, and showed that the project’s activities have had a positive effect on both the HDDS and WDDS.
All data sources (i.e. the project M&E data, the University of Zambia survey, as well as the qualitative focus group discussions) showed that applying conservation agriculture techniques had a significant and positive impact on maize yields, for both men and women, and in general there was in increase in yields for other crops too (sorghum, soybeans, groundnuts and cowpeas). The evaluation concluded that the project had successfully supported improved nutrition and food security through increased farm yields and increased production and consumption of legumes.
However, while adopting conservation agriculture was found to have a significant impact on production, and an increase in food availability was certainly observed among project beneficiaries, the evaluation found that farmers faced significant barriers in fully adopting conservation agriculture techniques – particularly with regard to labour constraints and the increased burden of weeding under a conservation agriculture farming system. Meanwhile, a lack of reliable markets, particularly for legumes, may deter farmers from fully incorporating legumes into crop rotations, which not only affects the sustainability of adopting conservation agriculture, but also has implications on the sustainability of food security outcomes observed during the project’s implementation. The evaluation recommends that future projects of this nature should incorporate linkages to markets and the private sector, while promoting further research on labour-saving techniques including mechanization and sustainable weed-management practices.
The full evaluation report and annexes (including the study conducted by the University of Zambia) would be available online in the coming days at http://www.fao.org/evaluation/en/.
Kind regards.
Eoghan Molloy
Evaluation Officer Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome, Italy
RE: What works in improving food security and nutrition in very poor communities?
Dear Dr. Emile Houngbo,
The FAO Office of Evaluation has just recently conducted the final evaluation of the Conservation Agriculture Scaling Up (CASU) project in Zambia, funded by the European Union, which had the objective of sustainably increasing crop productivity and diversity through widespread promotion of the three principles of conservation agriculture across the entire country, targeting over 300,000 smallholder farmers. The main focus of the evaluation was to assess the extent to which conservation agriculture has been sustainably adopted by Zambian beneficiary farmers, although the evaluation also sought to assess what outcomes were evident (positive and/or negative) from the project’s activities, and what were the impacts on food security, income, and soil health.
The evaluation used a mixed methods approach – using qualitative and quantitative methods – to assess project results. The evaluation team met with over 650 Zambian farmers across the different agro-ecological regions in Zambia during April 2018, conducting focus group discussions and key informant interviews with project stakeholders from FAO, the government, private sector and civil society. In addition, the University of Zambia, on behalf of the FAO Office of Evaluation, conducted a household-level impact assessment survey to collect quantitative data amongst a sample of over 300 farmers, in order to assess progress against the baseline survey that had been conducted in 2013. Meanwhile, the evaluation drew upon the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) data collected by the project team throughout the project’s implementation period.
Farmers met by the evaluation team reported (in focus group discussions) that food security and dietary diversity has greatly improved, and that nutrition objectives are on track. The focus on including women in the project activities has led to more legumes being grown and maintained for home use. In the focus group discussions there was clear feedback that legume quantities and varieties have increased. Many households grew small quantities of groundnuts earlier (typically considered a woman’s crop), but with the focus on legume production by the project, farmers noted that they now have a wider range of crops – now they are growing soya, cowpeas, pigeon peas, Bambara nuts, other bean varieties as well as groundnuts, depending on the area. They said that earlier they had many hungry months most years, but since CASU began they have maize year-round, and most households also have legumes available year-round (or at least ten months of the year). Many households have also begun to grow vegetables at home.
One of the project’s impact indicators was household dietary diversity (HDD) and women’s dietary diversity (WDD). This was assessed in the project baseline questionnaire in 2013, by asking farmers to select from a list of 9 food groups those they had consumed in the past 24 hours. At the time of baseline data collection, the average Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) was 7.79 (out of a possible score of 9) and the average Women’s Dietary Diversity Score (WDDS) was 5.09 (out of 6). These were already quite high (therefore there was limited room for improvement), but showed increasing trend over the project period. The project’s monitoring data (collected at regular intervals between 2013 and 2018) showed an improvement in HDD and WDD. Final scores reported by the project monitoring system were 8.31 and 5.41 respectively.
The findings of the University of Zambia household survey corroborated the projects monitoring data, and showed that the project’s activities have had a positive effect on both the HDDS and WDDS.
All data sources (i.e. the project M&E data, the University of Zambia survey, as well as the qualitative focus group discussions) showed that applying conservation agriculture techniques had a significant and positive impact on maize yields, for both men and women, and in general there was in increase in yields for other crops too (sorghum, soybeans, groundnuts and cowpeas). The evaluation concluded that the project had successfully supported improved nutrition and food security through increased farm yields and increased production and consumption of legumes.
However, while adopting conservation agriculture was found to have a significant impact on production, and an increase in food availability was certainly observed among project beneficiaries, the evaluation found that farmers faced significant barriers in fully adopting conservation agriculture techniques – particularly with regard to labour constraints and the increased burden of weeding under a conservation agriculture farming system. Meanwhile, a lack of reliable markets, particularly for legumes, may deter farmers from fully incorporating legumes into crop rotations, which not only affects the sustainability of adopting conservation agriculture, but also has implications on the sustainability of food security outcomes observed during the project’s implementation. The evaluation recommends that future projects of this nature should incorporate linkages to markets and the private sector, while promoting further research on labour-saving techniques including mechanization and sustainable weed-management practices.
The full evaluation report and annexes (including the study conducted by the University of Zambia) would be available online in the coming days at http://www.fao.org/evaluation/en/.
Kind regards.
Eoghan Molloy
Evaluation Officer
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00153 Rome, Italy