Abstract:
The improved technologies and other practices in agricultural production are often recognized as critical in addressing food insecurity and poverty. Conservation agriculture has emerged as an alternative to conventional agriculture as a result of losses in soil productivity due to soil degradation. This study was conducted in order to determine the economic performance of conservation as compared to conventional agricultural practices in Southern Uluguru Mountains in Morogoro region. The analysis specifically aimed at establishing differences in farmers’ profitability between conservation and conventional agricultural practices and determining productivity of inputs for conservation as compared to conventional agricultural practices. Purposive sampling was used to get three wards and two villages in each ward. Simple random sampling was used to get 200 farmers (100 from each group; conservation and conventional agriculture farmers). The mean gross margin per hectare for conservation and conventional agricultural practices were TZS 526 800 and TZS 200 360 respectively. This implies that that the returns for conservation agriculture are higher than that of conventional agricultural practice. The marginal productivity of land for conservation agriculture farmers was 366 kg/ha while that of conventional agriculture farmers was 248 kg/ha. Marginal productivity of labour for conservation agriculture famers was 90 kg/man day while that of conventional agriculture farmers was 46 kg/man day. This shows that the marginal productivity of inputs for conservation agriculture farmers was higher than conventional agriculture farmers. Generally the study suggested that Conservation agricultural practices have potential to improve the income and livelihood of farmers in the study area if properly managed. The government through close collaboration with agricultural research institutions, development agencies, project implementers, district extension officers and farmers organizations should put more efforts on disseminating the benefits accrued from the practices for easy adoption as farmers are reluctant to adopt the technology.
