360 Enabling Policies and Institutions for Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems
weeding time to gain some benefit at limited cost. At the village level, issues include
the range of soils available, the overall pressure on farm land and its availability,
access to grazing and forage resources, and the importance of labour flows between
households, as well as location in relation to markets. At the national level, factors
of relevance relate to macro-economic policy, input–output prices, access to credit,
institutions and legislation regarding land tenure and its management, approaches
to research and extension policy, marketing and infrastructural investment.
Our research approach used a range of methods to discuss the importance of
such factors at farm-household, village and national levels. Interviews with farmers
regarding family histories and changes in soil-fertility management practices have
brought out the combined importance of changes at household level (such as
access to labour, livestock assets and off-farm income sources), and broader eco-
nomic and institutional factors (such as major shifts in prices following devalua-
tion, and land tenure reorganization). This interplay of household, village and
macro-level factors helps explain the differences in performance between different
farmers at the time of the research. However, it was also clear from the family and
village histories that farmers’ strategies are dynamic and continually adapting to a
range of new problems, as well as the opening up of better opportunities both in
agriculture and elsewhere. In some cases, major events such as drought in Zimba-
bwe have caused significant changes to the farming system due to reduced supplies
of manure following heavy cattle losses. In others, a coincidence of good fortune
at family level and the development of profitable options for crop production can
enable particular farmers to improve their situation greatly. Thus, for example, the
growth of horticulture in the Mangwende site in Zimbabwe has been the result of
the growth of urban demand for vegetables and fruit in Harare. Those who have
access to wetland areas, labour and reliable transport are able to cash in on this new
market. Equally, some farmers in the irrigated rice village of Tissana, Mali were
able to gain a large allocation of land within the scheme, because they had a large
number of family members at the moment of land allocation. Such land has
become increasingly valuable with the growth in vegetable gardening and market-
ing.
At the same time, the research also demonstrates that maintaining and improv-
ing the fertility of their soils is only one among a range of objectives which farmers
are pursuing. Farmers are faced with many important choices relating to their farm
enterprise, other economic activities and domestic commitments. The decision by
farmers to invest effort and capital in improving the soils and productivity of their
farmland will depend, in part, on pressures to do so, the perception that changes
are necessary and the lack of other options. But it will also depend on their confi-
dence that the returns will be worth it. Soil degradation and nutrient losses are
unlikely to prompt changes in farmer behaviour until and unless they perceive
clear benefits from doing so.
Exploiting soil capital is a rational strategy for farmers to pursue where the nutri-
ents remain to be tapped and where clearing new land for such purposes is cheaper
and easier than investing in purchase of inorganic inputs, or in the considerable