CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE

Minimum tillage (Planting basins) in a farmers’s field in preparation for this year’s planting season. A taught strategy adopted by smallholder farmers in Climate smart Agriculture to harness water in case of droughts and/or dry spells.
Moving along the T4 road in Eastern Zambia the landscape is characterized by forests, grasslands and farmer fields with ridges, from time to time there is a break in scenery and you see ripped fields or planting basins. The ripped fields and planting basins as explained by Farmer are a form of storage of nutrients(organic and inorganic) and water harvesting and storage critical in the ever erratic rainwater availability. The field above is 3 hectares and land preparation commenced right after harvesting in April goes on until early September in readiness for planting in December 2020 when effective rainfall sets in.

In the field above, once the planting basins were completed, the farmer used cattle manure and leaves of Gliricidia fadherbia (Agroforestry tree) in the basins to help improve the soil biophysical properties including water holing capacity which in turn facilitates water use efficiency.