Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems cambridge.org/raf Research Paper Cite this article: Brown B, Nuberg I, Llewellyn R. Pathways to intensify the utilization of conservation agriculture by African smallholder farmers. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems https://doi.org/10.1017/ S1742170518000108 Received: 14 August 2017 Accepted: 16 January 2018 Key words: Adoption gap; Africa; agricultural transformation; farming systems research; qualitative assessment; technology adoption Author for correspondence: Brendan Brown, Brendan.brown@outlook.com © Cambridge University Press 2018 Pathways to intensify the utilization of conservation agriculture by African smallholder farmers Brendan Brown 1,2 , Ian Nuberg 1 and Rick Llewellyn 2 1 School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide, Australia and 2 CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Adelaide, Australia Abstract If the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved, African smallholder farmers will need to embrace new technologies such as conservation agriculture (CA) in order to increase both their productivity and sustainability. Yet farmers have been slow to embrace CA and when they have, they are inclined to do so at limited intensities. Current investigations tend to apply binary frameworks that classify all utilizations as ‘adoption’, and do not consider in depth the farmer perspectives and contextual realities that affect farmer decision-making on the intensity of use. We analyze 57 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with farmers who implement CA to understand why they tend to do so at limited intensities and what is required to intensify their CA activities, both for them and others within their communities. While most farmers reported substantial yield benefits from using CA, this was mainly related to input intensification (particularly herbicides) and was limited by constrained financial resources. Overall, the intensity of CA utilization was constrained due to farmer-identified constraints across their physical, financial, human and informational resources. Because of this, stagnation at low intensities of CA utilization was common, reflecting the assumed trans- formational adoption pathway for CA and the focus on binary adoption, as opposed to modi- fication and the broader utilization process. To overcome this, we propose a more nuanced transitional approach focused on the intensification of four broader principles of CA over time [i.e., (1) strategic tillage, (2) soil protection, (3) crop diversification and (4) input man- agement] as opposed to the strict packaging of CA practices. Such a change in approach will foster increased positive perceptions within the community and allow farmers to locally adapt CA to build their own way toward complete CA utilization and with less need for subsidization. Introduction Agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) faces a challenging future in light of a more variable climate (Jones and Thornton, 2003) and increasing land degradation (Bai et al., 2008). Noting SSA’s growing demographic pressures (Fuglie et al., 2012), demand for cereals is likely to triple over the coming three decades (van Ittersum et al., 2016). Yet current productivity for key food crops in Africa remains nearly stagnant (FAO, 2016), leading to rising concerns over food security and environmental sustainability. Much of the discourse on these issues has focused on conservation agriculture (CA), defined as the grouping of three inter-related principles that are often promoted in a restricted way and thus interpreted as prescribed practices: minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and rotation of diverse crops (FAO, 2014). CA has shown extensive potential for agro- nomic and environmental improvements (Ndah et al., 2014; Thierfelder et al., 2015, 2016; Mupangwa et al., 2016), yet despite more than five decades of CA within the research and extension systems throughout eastern and southern Africa, the uptake of CA remains limited. According to Brown et al. (2017b), this limited uptake reflects two key themes: (1) the limited uptake of CA by smallholder farmers; and (2) a tendency for the smallholder farmers who do apply CA to do so at low intensities. The literature has generally addressed the limited uptake of CA through binary classifica- tions of farmers as either ‘adopters’ or ‘non-adopters’. In doing this, there has been limited exploration beyond the ‘success’ and/or explanation of ‘adoption’ and limited understanding of the intensity of CA use by farmers, and particuarly of modification by farmers to meet their local contextual realities (Glover et al., 2016). This is in strong contrast to the growing body of literature suggesting that incomplete adoption of CA dominates uptake in Africa and that three-factor CA is rarely fully embraced (Baudron et al., 2007; Gowing and Palmer, 2008; Giller et al., 2009; Pannell et al., 2014). Brown et al. (2017b) found that while binary adoption of CA was considerable amongst eastern and southern African smallholder farmers (Ethiopia: