Examining the impact of conservation agriculture on environmental efficiency among maize farmers in Zambia

This paper explores the impact of conservation agriculture (CA) on the environmental efficiency of maize farmers in Zambia, by comparing nitrogen fertilizer recovery between farms that practise CA and those using conventional farming technologies. The Nitrogen Index Tier Zero tool is employed in gen...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environment and development economics 2017-04, Vol.22 (2), p.177-201
Main Authors: Abdulai, Abdul-Nafeo, Abdulai, Awudu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural conservation
Agricultural economics
Agricultural production
Agricultural technology
Agriculture
Balance sheets
Conservation
Corn
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Efficiency
Emissions
Environmental economics
Externality
Farmers
Farming
Farms
Fertilizers
Food
Heterogeneity
Impact analysis
Land ownership
Maize
Nitrogen
Nitrogen balance
Productivity
Studies
Sustainable agriculture
Technology utilization
Testing laboratories
Zea mays
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Summary:This paper explores the impact of conservation agriculture (CA) on the environmental efficiency of maize farmers in Zambia, by comparing nitrogen fertilizer recovery between farms that practise CA and those using conventional farming technologies. The Nitrogen Index Tier Zero tool is employed in generating a nitrogen balance sheet at the farm level. As CA technology may improve farmers' access to better technology, we employ a selectivity-corrected meta-frontier approach to account for potential selection bias and technology heterogeneity. The empirical results suggest that farmers practising CA are environmentally more efficient than conventional farmers. The findings also show that environmental efficiency is significantly influenced by access to credit, farming experience and years of schooling of household head, land ownership and distance to markets. Moreover, farmers practising CA are found to be technically more efficient than those using the conventional technology.
ISSN:1355-770X
1469-4395
DOI:10.1017/S1355770X16000309