**Acknowledgements**

*Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments and Resilience*

Despite an insignificant statistical link between CA adoption and marital status, inherent gender dynamics in marital status of a rural society such as Chivi needs a closer scrutiny. The strength of gender roles in decision making and land ownership might not be visible on the ground but has a huge indirect influence on adoption of an agricultural innovation such as CA [25]. These gender roles are well-defined in Chivi, a predominantly rural district with only 30 out 32 rural wards [20, 24]. An interview with key informants on gender gaps in Chivi also acknowledged existent gender gaps. NGOs had problems with the registering Chivi women to a CA sister project of Nutritional gardens. Most women would register into this project under their husbands' names some of which divorced them and some not even in the community, working either in the cities or outside the country. This shows that even though women are the producers they are not the decision makers nor practical land owners. This becomes a bit complicated when they have to make crucial and life changing decisions such as changing the farming system from conventional plough system to CA. There is need to mainstream gender into a CA project, lest it might affect the sustainability of CA or further widen the gender gaps that already exists in agriculture. Financial capacity as well as off field commitments also influence the adoption of CA technology. Employment status of participants revealed that most household heads who participated in this survey were unemployed. At least 59% of the participants were unemployed. Very few participants were employed with a 3.6% and about 28% were self-employed while 10% were on pension. The findings showed that the rate of employment in Chivi is very low and people who are employed work

**Amount Frequency Percent** ≤\$227 97 69.3 ≥\$228 43 30.7 Total 140 100

Household heads' monthly incomes were also analysed. The incomes were categorised using the United Nations (UN) poverty datum line of US\$1.90 per individual per day [26]. This was calculated for a 30 day month and further multiplied by 4 which is the average household size for Chivi District [20], refer to **Table 2**. Most participants, thus 69.3% had a monthly income below the poverty datum line while only 30.7% of the households were out of the poverty threshold. This supports the UN (2019)'s assertion that sub-Saharan Africa has most of the people living below the poverty line together with South Asia. In line with these findings, focus group discussions also raised an interesting argument on CA impact in the community. Participants who adopted CA from its inception mentioned free inputs as one major reason which made them buy into the project while the non-adopters argued that CA project had blocked the issuing of free drought relief food by NGOs. These arguments speak to the high levels of poverty in the community. Hence for CA technology to be acceptable in the community it has to prove itself as a viable

This study notes that adoption of the CA project in Chivi is low, with some farmers withdrawing from the project in ward such as 21 and 22. For a strategy to

**170**

outside the District [8, 21].

**Table 2.**

*Chivi monthly household incomes.*

income generating project.

**4. Conclusion and recommendations**

I would like to acknowledge the support from NGOs working in Chivi District such as CARE international and Christian Care. The Department of Lands and Agriculture, ARREX officials at Chivi office for assisting with all the data which was used in this survey. The entire Chivi community for their willingness to share information. Last but not least, special thanks to the University of Venda for funding this research.
