By Anthony Muchoki
The dust rose like a prayer that wouldn’t reach heaven. I stood with Mama Esther at the edge of her freshly tilled maize field in Kilifi, watching the topsoil, her inheritance, her insurance, her everything, lift and scatter in the wind. “The experts say I should stop ploughing,” she laughed bitterly, gesturing at the cracked earth. “But the experts don’t pay school fees when the harvest fails.”
This is the conversation that haunts me, that should haunt us all. Not because Mama Esther is wrong, but because she’s absolutely right. Across Africa, we’re witnessing a tragic paradox: the very farmers we need to save the soil are trapped in systems that force them to destroy it. And yet, in conference rooms from Nairobi to Geneva, the narrative persists that African smallholders are simply “resistant to change,” too “traditional” to embrace conservation agriculture.
Let me be clear: The future of Mother Earth depends on healthy soil, but healthy soil depends on justice, not just technique.
The Myth of the “Backward Farmer”
The assumption that African farmers till out of ignorance is not just wrong; it’s an insult wrapped in colonial condescension. Every farmer I know understands that the plough wounds the earth. They see the erosion. They feel the declining yields. They know.
But knowing and doing occupy different worlds when survival is measured in seasons, not decades. When Mama Esther tills, she’s not clinging to tradition—she’s navigating a minefield of impossible choices. That plough breaks open compacted soil that her single hoe cannot penetrate. It buries weed seeds that would otherwise choke her crops. It’s the technology she can access, repair, and share with neighbors in ways that build community rather than debt.
The irony cuts deep. The ox-plough itself was a colonial imposition, forced upon our grandparents as “modern agriculture.” Now, a century later, the same voices that demanded we abandon the hoe for the plough demand we abandon the plough for herbicides. Always, the solution comes from outside. Always, we must unlearn what we know.
But here’s what those voices miss: African farmers have been practicing conservation for millennia. Intercropping, mulching, fallowing—these aren’t “discoveries” from Western agricultural colleges. They’re ancestral wisdoms that industrial agriculture buried deeper than any plough ever could. The question isn’t why farmers won’t adopt conservation practices. It’s why systems won’t recognize the conservation practices farmers already have.
The Hidden Costs of “Going No-Till”
Let’s talk about what zero tillage actually demands, stripped of its promotional gloss.
First, herbicides. Without tilling, weeds must be controlled chemically. But glyphosate costs money—money that must be paid upfront, before any harvest materializes. In remote villages where a single shop stocks agricultural inputs at monopoly prices, a liter of herbicide can cost a week’s wages. And that’s assuming you can read the label’s warnings, assuming you have protective equipment, assuming you trust chemicals on land where your children play.
Then, cover crops. Beautiful in theory—nitrogen-fixing legumes that protect and enrich the soil. But whose seeds are these? Where do they come from? A farmer with half a hectare cannot sacrifice even a corner for crops that won’t feed her family this season. She needs every square meter for survival, not soil improvement that might pay off years from now, if she still has the land.
Which brings us to the cruelest prerequisite: secure tenure. You don’t invest in soil you might lose. Across Africa, 90% of rural land lacks formal documentation. Women, who produce 80% of our food, rarely own the fields they farm. How can we ask them to plant trees, build terraces, or establish permanent cover when a brother-in-law, a chief, or a government project could claim their plot tomorrow?
The extension officer who might guide this transition? She covers 3,000 farmers, has no vehicle, and hasn’t been paid in three months. The demonstration plot that should show no-till success? It was converted to a chief’s nephew’s compound last year.
This is the reality. Not resistance,reality.
What Must Change—Beyond the Field
The path forward demands humility from those who’ve never held a hoe and courage from those who have. We must stop pushing “adoption” and start enabling sovereignty.
I’ve seen no-till triumph in Zimbabwe, where farmer field schools let communities experiment without risking starvation. In Zambia, where conservation agriculture emerged from farmers’ own innovations, not imported packages. In Kenya, where women’s cooperatives share herbicide costs and knowledge, transforming risk into collective resilience. These aren’t exceptions—they’re blueprints. But blueprints need foundations: land rights, especially for women; input subsidies that support agroecology, not just agribusiness; extension services that learn from farmers before teaching them; credit systems that understand seasonal rhythms, not quarterly reports.
We need research that starts in the field, not the lab. Breeding programs that develop cover crops for African soils and climates. Local production of bio-herbicides that farmers can make, not just buy. Indigenous seed systems that preserve biodiversity while improving yields.
Most urgently, we need to recognize farmers as scientists, not subjects. Every season, millions of African smallholders conduct the world’s largest agricultural experiment, testing what works on their specific soil, in their specific climate, with their specific constraints. Their knowledge isn’t “traditional” as opposed to “modern.” It’s empirical, evolved, essential.
The Soil’s True Stewards
If we truly believe conservation agriculture is essential for the planet, then we must stop blaming farmers for systemic failures. The climate crisis wasn’t created by African smallholders—they produce less than 4% of global agricultural emissions while feeding a billion people. Yet they’re bearing its worst impacts: droughts that last years, floods that last minutes, seasons that no longer arrive when the ancestors promised.
The soil will heal only when the people who tend it are seen not as obstacles to be overcome, but as stewards to be supported, partners to be heard, and the first responders to the climate crisis they didn’t create but must now solve.
Mama Esther knows more about her soil than any satellite can detect or any model can predict. She knows its morning moods, its thirst patterns, its hidden fertilities. She would embrace no-till tomorrow if the system embraced her today, with credit, with inputs, with respect, with justice.
The dust still rises from tilled fields across Africa, carrying away our continent’s future grain by grain. But it’s not the farmers who are failing the soil. It’s the rest of us failing the farmers. Until we address this fundamental injustice, conservation agriculture will remain what it is today: a beautiful theory dying in fields where survival trumps sustainability, where the future is mortgaged to feed the present, where those who know the land best are heard the least.
The earth is patient, but not infinite. The farmers are resilient, but not invincible. The time for justice—for the soil and those who tend it—is not tomorrow. It’s this planting season. It’s now.
Ajm.muchoki@gmail.com
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