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Title Characterization of maize producing households in Monze and Kalomo Districts in Zambia
 
Names Kalinda, T.
Tembo, G.
Kuntashula, E.
Langyintuo, A.S.
Mwangi, W.M.
La Rovere, R.
Date Issued 2010 (iso8601)
Abstract The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project is an initiative which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF) and Howard G. Buffett Foundation to accelerate drought tolerant maize development and deployment in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The DTMA Initiative joins the efforts of people, organizations and projects supporting the development and dissemination of drought tolerant maize in SSA. The work builds on the efforts of CIMMYT to develop and breed drought tolerant maize varieties. Maize sustains the life of more than 300 million of Africa’s most vulnerable and it is Africa’s most important cereal food crop. When recurrent droughts in SSA ruin harvests, lives and livelihoods are threatened or destroyed. Experts say that the situation may become even worse as climate change progresses. Developing, distributing and cultivating drought tolerant maize varieties are highly relevant interventions to reduce vulnerability and food insecurity in SSA. CIMMYT and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) have been working for over 10 years with national agricultural research institutes to adapt breeding techniques to SSA. As a result, over 50 new maize hybrids and openpollinated maize varieties (OPVs) have been developed and provided to seed companies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) for dissemination, and several of them have reached farmers’ fields. These drought tolerant maize varieties produce about 20–30% higher yields than other maize varieties under drought conditions. DTMA will focus on improving, accelerating and enlarging the entire drought tolerant maize variety development and delivery pipeline targeted at SSA, including removing institutional bottlenecks for rapidly scaling up and out to reach 30–40 million people over a 10-year time frame (http://dtma.cimmyt.org). This country study is part of the DTMA project. It presents the findings of the household survey which serves as a baseline and characterizes the maize producing households in the Monze and Kalomo districts of southern Zambia. These areas are part of the project’s medium drought risk zone (20–40% PFS) target area. It complements an earlier community assessment in the same area (Kalinda et al. 2007). The purpose of this study is to characterize the maize producing households and to assess the adoption of improved maize varieties. This study was also designed to collect baseline data on farm households to construct indicators that could be used to subsequently measure the impact of the adoption of improved maize varieties. Due to cost and time, the baseline study was conducted in only two selected districts in the country. The report is organized in sections as follows. Section two presents the sampling and data collection procedure followed by a brief description of the agro-climatic characteristics of the survey districts. The households’ access to agricultural production resources is presented in section three. Section four discusses farm households’ livelihood strategies related to crop and livestock production as well as off-farm/non-farm activities that generate income. This section also presents the household income and expenditure profiles. Section five presents the use of agricultural technology and improved maize varieties. The report ends with a summary discussion on selected impact indicators.
Genre Report
Access Condition Open Access
Identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10883/1093