Conservation Farming in Zambia: Understanding the Impact of Property Rights on Adoption.
Carney, Conor.
2012
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Abstract: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, agriculture accounts for about 72% of employment in Zambia, making agricultural
production techniques an issue of great economic importance to the country. Unfortunately,
soil quality has deteriorated due to historic use of the plough and burned crop residues.
As a result, a large percentage of Zambian farmers ... read morecurrently struggle to produce enough
maize to maintain subsistence. Conservation agriculture, or zero till farming, has become
an important focus for the Zambian farming industry, as farmers hope to improve their soil
quality and increase yields by using an uncomplicated technology that has been around for
over 50 years. Using data collected on farmers over the years 2007-2010, this paper models
the adoption decision of conservation farming and examines patterns and characteristics of
adopters versus non-adopters. Also, implementing an instrumental variables approach to
induce exogenous variation in property rights, the empirical results show that having a
title deed increases the probability of adoption for the average household from between .55
and .66 percentage points. While these estimates only provide insight into households
induced to obtain property rights by the lower costs of being close to the district
capital, they are an important initial examination of conservation farming adoption in
Zambia.
Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts University, 2012.
Submitted to the Dept. of Economics.
Advisors: Jeffrey Zabel, and Kelsey Jack.
Committee: David Garman.
Keywords: Economics, Agriculture economics, and Environmental economics.read less - ID:
- j098zp75m
- Component ID:
- tufts:20763
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
