**Abstract**

The potential of scaling conservation agriculture (CA), for long-term food security, remains under-investigated within the context of agricultural food value chains in South Africa. To scale the use of CA an understanding of the current agricultural value chains, their functioning, regulatory framework and constraints, is essential and this raises a key question: What are the main shortfalls and deterrents in agricultural value chains and why might CA be faced with challenges to feed into these existing structures, through which it could, the hopes are, create a more inclusive and sustainable farming system for long-term food security? The empirical data from an ethnographic qualitative participant research showed that interviewed value chain participants (VCP) are limited in acting on account of their economic constraints. None of them had products that supported CA, while financial institutions argued that such products would not be necessary, as any risk mitigating farming system would, in any event, result in financial benefits to the farmer.

**Keywords:** agricultural value chains, sustainable agriculture, agricultural economics, agricultural finance, farm ecology & policy

## **1. Introduction**

Biodiversity is the planet's greatest asset [1]. Anthropocene-induced species loss is estimated at up to 10,000 times the rate of natural extinction, in which Hui et al. [1] argue agriculture, next to overfishing, industrialisation and urbanisation, plays a considerable role. Humans rely heavily on ecosystem services, which include cleaning air and water, stabilising weather, maintaining soil fertility, dissipating waste, controlling pests, pollinating crops, generating power and discovering new antibodies, and providing food, timber, cloth, medicine, minerals and industrial materials such as coal, oil, gas, rubber, plastics, and chemicals [1]. Humans have never contributed to such flows, but have always made use of them, today at a rate, where such ecosystem services are less likely to be available indefinitely.

Planetary boundaries, a concept developed by Rockström et al. [2], which identifies safe operating spaces within earth systems, such as climate stability, fresh water, land system change, ocean acidification, phosphate and nitrogen biochemical flows and biosphere integrity, are integral parts of the ecosystem services and represent our planet's limits in supplying such services within the principles of our

planet's carrying capacity. To sustain humanity, we need to manage its biosphere within that carrying capacity, to maintain such services, and avoid regime shifts, mass extinction or repeating boom-bust patterns of earlier civilisations which were unable to manage their natural resources and regional carrying capacities [1].

#### **1.1 Problem statement**

Of Rockström's et al. [2] and Steffen's et al. [3] eight planetary boundaries, agriculture is by far the biggest contributor to defined limits of five of the boundaries; fresh water use, climate change, change in nitrogen and phosphate bio-chemical flows, land-use change as well as biodiversity loss. Agriculture also contributes up to 30% of CO2 emissions to climate change [4, 5] and is, due to feedback loops from nitrogen and phosphate bio-chemical flows and deforestation, also a great contributor to biodiversity loss [2, 3].

Nelson et al. [6] suggest that due to climate change, global agricultural output is likely to decline between 10 and 15% in the next 60–70 years and even up to 50% in drier regions of Africa. Compared to the rest of the continent, arguably, much of South African (SA) agricultural land is located within such dry regions. With predicted changes, SA might need to consider whether its conventional farming (CvF) systems are appropriate going forward, while on the other hand evidence shows that alternatives, more sustainable farming systems such as CA, are comparably more climate resilient [7–9]. Arguments that farmers should adapt to such production systems in order to mitigate an output reducing impact due to climate change are weighing in more and more.

Low tillage, a form of CA regularly practiced in KwaZulu-Natal (~60%) and the Western Cape (>70%), indicates that in two provinces good headway has been made in favour of CA; yet finds little to no adoption in other provinces [10]. CA is based on three principles, no-till, crop rotation, and cover crops (residue retention) to increase both soil organic matter, aggregate stability and water holding capacity, while reducing soil bulk density, erosion, carbon emission and exposure to drought and ultimately increased yield [11]. With rain-fed crops in dry climates, CA can significantly increases productivity [12]. Pittelkow et al. [12] also argue that this indicates that CA will play an important role in mitigating the impacts of climate change. Therefore, CA is one of many farming practices farmers can adopt to farm with less environmental impact, while preparing for climate change.

Midgley et al. [13] argue that while South Africa's National Development Plan has identified agriculture as a primary economic objective, although not explicit, it is biased towards large scale, commercial and CvF practices, such as tillage and monoculture. South Africa's Integrated Growth and Development Plan [14], as well as the Agricultural Policy Action Plan [15], on the other hand, promote equitable growth and sustainable use of resources.

Food security is defined as having access to food of nutritional value at all times [16]. In this article we argued that CvF in a world of climate change poses a risk to food security, while a focus on more sustainable farming practices such as CA uses less water, requires less nitrogen and phosphate, sequesters CO2 and diversifies the ecosystems of farmland, with the ability to decrease soil erosion, increase soil life and fertility and other ecosystem services to the benefits of a farmer's long-term profitability [11, 13, 17, 18]. Its uptake, however, remains low in SA. We argue that CA has an important role to play in a transition and show why, from evidence of our research, CA does not find support from SA food value chains.

This leads to questions such as: why CA adoption rate remains low; what role agricultural VCPs can play to promote CA; and what institutions, policies, and VCPs are responsible for hindrances to adoption? What limitations do VCPs themselves

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*Value Chain-Induced Constraints Limiting Scale of Conservation Agriculture in South Africa*

experience in potentially supporting CA, and how do feedback loops in existing

ive attitude to attain more unbiased responses from the participant.

ecological farming systems and relate it back to CA.

tives exist that could replace CvF practices.

**2.1 Problems of conventional agricultural systems**

which is 100 times faster than naturally occurs [39].

impact on the environment than in the last 100 years [25, 42–44].

**2.2 Resource hungry agriculture's impact on planetary boundaries**

land use [24] and is arguably the biggest contributor to biodiversity loss and

**2. Literature review**

Our study was undertaken as an ethnographic based research exploring business cultures and morals using qualitative semi-structured interviews. The questions for the research participants (VCPs) were not directed at any commodity in particular; however, because we also questioned silo owners and millers of maize, answers of some VCP often hinged around maize, also a main crop type in South Africa [19]. The choice of businesses interviewed was based on their involvement in the food value chain and their general size and importance they played and impact they had in their respective industries. Because of the sensitivity of the topic the interviewer needed to let go of any presumptions and assumed a less critical and more support-

The interviews were then transcribed to attain primary qualitative data. For the coding and categorising, we used grounded theory as an inductive systematic methodology typically used in social sciences to analyse qualitative data and give it conceptual structure through categorisation of general themes emerging from the data [20–23]. Preceding the analysis and results of the research data, we reviewed literature to assess existing knowledge around the challenges facing existing economic and

Conventional agricultural systems, particularly practiced in the developed world, produce vast amounts of food, yet they come at a significant cost to the environment. While the situation is complex, the details are often not acknowledged; in the following we outline high level important aspects that challenge the long term economic, social, and ecological sustainability of CvF and then show what alterna-

Covering 1/3rd of the planet's surface [24] agriculture has resulted in disturbed

We deploy 2½ million tons of pesticides and fungicides annually and nevertheless lose 40% of crops globally to pests, diseases and weeds [40], while its use is also responsible for over 40,000 human deaths and 3–5 million cases of pesticide poisoning every year [41]. At no time in history has agriculture had such a high

Agriculture globally occupies 13 times more land than any other Anthropocene

ecosystems [25–27], land degradation [28], loss of biodiversity [29–31], leaching fertiliser, nitrification of groundwater, eutrophication of above groundwater ecosystems, coastal dead zones [26, 32], small organism mortality [33, 34], and biological resistance build-up against agrochemicals [35–37]. Modern industrialised agriculture and overgrazing are blamed for destroying a third of the planet's topsoil within 40 years, adding 10 million hectares every year to the toll of soil erosion [38]

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84499*

**1.2 Research approach and design**

business models of VCP block a transition to CA?

experience in potentially supporting CA, and how do feedback loops in existing business models of VCP block a transition to CA?
