Conservation Agriculture (CA) is advocated as an agricultural innovation that will improve smallholder famer resilience to future climate change. Under the conditions presented by the El Nino event of 2015/16, the implementation of CA was examined in southern Malawi at household, district and national institutional levels. Agricultural system constraints experienced by farming households are identified, and in response the technologies, structures and agency associated with CA are evaluated. The most significant constraints were linked to household health, with associated labour and monetary impacts, in addition to the availability of external inputs of fertiliser and improved seed varieties. Our findings show that such constraints are not adequately addressed through current agricultural system support structures, with the institutions surrounding CA (in both Government extension services and NGO agricultural projects) focusing attention predominantly at field level practice, rather than on broader system constraints such as education and health support systems. Limited capacity within local institutions undermines long term efforts to implement new technologies such as CA. It is vitally important that the flexibility of farmers to adapt new technologies in a locally-appropriate manner is not closed down through national and institutional aims to build consensus around narrow technical definitions of a climate-smart technology such as CA. To enable farmers to fully utilise CA programmes, interventions must take a more holistic, cross-sectoral approach, understanding and adapting to address locally experienced constraints. Building capacity within households to adopt new agricultural practices is critical, and integrating healthcare support into agricultural policy is a vital step towards increasing smallholder resilience to future climate change.

中文翻译：

---

农业系统和保护性农业：马拉维的技术、结构和机构

保护性农业 (CA) 被提倡为一种农业创新，可以提高小农对未来气候变化的适应能力。在 2015/16 年厄尔尼诺事件提出的条件下，在马拉维南部的家庭、地区和国家机构层面审查了 CA 的实施情况。确定农户所经历的农业系统限制，并评估与 CA 相关的技术、结构和机构作为回应。最重要的制约因素与家庭健康有关，以及相关的劳动力和货币影响，此外还有外部肥料投入和改良种子品种的供应。我们的研究结果表明，目前的农业系统支持结构并没有充分解决这些制约因素，与围绕 CA 的机构（在政府推广服务和非政府组织农业项目中）主要关注实地实践，而不是更广泛的系统限制，如教育和健康支持系统。地方机构能力有限，破坏了实施新技术（如 CA）的长期努力。至关重要的是，农民以适合当地的方式适应新技术的灵活性不会因国家和机构目标而被关闭，即围绕气候智能技术的狭义技术定义（如 CA）建立共识。为了使农民能够充分利用 CA 计划，干预措施必须采取更全面、跨部门的方法，理解并适应当地遇到的制约因素。