Building Resilience in Cropping Systems of the Central Plateau of Haiti.

Smallholders in developing countries often suffer from a lack of resilience to shocks due to weather events, political and economic upheaval, and climate change. The overall goal of this SANREM CRSP (Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management) project is to adapt a conservation agriculture production system (CAPS) for the social, economic and bio-physical conditions of Haiti’s Central Plateau and to demonstrate that this locally adapted CAPS can improve smallholder livelihoods and resilience, significantly increase agricultural production, and restore agricultural production capacity. Resilient households are those with higher income and more resources to adapt to shocks in the form of poor health, climate risks, and political strife.  The extent to which soil quality and CAPS contribute to income is therefore a potentially important determinant of economic resilience. We conducted a detailed baseline survey of more than 600 smallholder households during 2011 and we have evaluated CAPS practices of reduced tillage and cover crops during two cropping seasons at three locations in the Central Plateau of Haiti. We find no reduction in crop yields due to adoption of CAPS practices, and use of cover crops has resulted in weed suppression. We find significant influences of soil quality (as observed by smallholders) on measures of economic resilience including crop species choice, crop diversity, the value of agricultural income, and other measures of household wealth. We find significant effects on income of adopting soil conserving agricultural practices across a range of soil qualities as observed by smallholders. Use of soil conservation practices on lower quality soils can improve the value of agricultural production in one planting cycle as much as 30 USD at harvest time, equivalent to more than one month of an average Haitian's income, for every additional 10% of plot area devoted to conservation practice usage in our data.