The role of conservation agriculture in sustainable agriculture.
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TLDR
It is concluded that agriculture in the next decade will have to sustainably produce more food from less land through more efficient use of natural resources and with minimal impact on the environment in order to meet growing population demands.Abstract:
The paper focuses on conservation agriculture (CA), defined as minimal soil disturbance (no-till, NT) and permanent soil cover (mulch) combined with rotations, as a more sustainable cultivation system for the future. Cultivation and tillage play an important role in agriculture. The benefits of tillage in agriculture are explored before introducing conservation tillage (CT), a practice that was borne out of the American dust bowl of the 1930s. The paper then describes the benefits of CA, a suggested improvement on CT, where NT, mulch and rotations significantly improve soil properties and other biotic factors. The paper concludes that CA is a more sustainable and environmentally friendly management system for cultivating crops. Case studies from the rice-wheat areas of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia and the irrigated maize-wheat systems of Northwest Mexico are used to describe how CA practices have been used in these two environments to raise production sustainably and profitably. Benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on global warming are also discussed. The paper concludes that agriculture in the next decade will have to sustainably produce more food from less land through more efficient use of natural resources and with minimal impact on the environment in order to meet growing population demands. Promoting and adopting CA management systems can help meet this goal.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People
H Charles J Godfray,John Beddington,I. R. Crute,Lawrence Haddad,David Lawrence,James F. Muir,Jules Pretty,Sherman Robinson,Sandy M Thomas,Camilla Toulmin +9 more
TL;DR: A multifaceted and linked global strategy is needed to ensure sustainable and equitable food security, different components of which are explored here.
Journal ArticleDOI
Agricultural sustainability: concepts, principles and evidence
TL;DR: Agricultural sustainability suggests a focus on both genotype improvements through the full range of modern biological approaches and improved understanding of the benefits of ecological and agronomic management, manipulation and redesign.
Journal ArticleDOI
Conservation agriculture and smallholder farming in Africa: The heretics' view
Ken E. Giller,Ken E. Giller,Ernst Witter,Marc Corbeels,Marc Corbeels,Pablo Tittonell,Pablo Tittonell +6 more
TL;DR: Conservation agriculture is claimed to be a panacea for the problems of poor agricultural productivity and soil degradation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). It is actively promoted by international research and development organisations, with such strong advocacy that critical debate is stifled as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Productivity limits and potentials of the principles of conservation agriculture
Cameron M. Pittelkow,X. Q. Liang,Bruce A. Linquist,Kees Jan van Groenigen,Juhwan Lee,Mark E. Lundy,Natasja van Gestel,Johan Six,Rodney T. Venterea,Chris van Kessel +9 more
TL;DR: A global meta-analysis using 5,463 paired yield observations from 610 studies to compare no-till, the original and central concept of conservation agriculture, with conventional tillage practices across 48 crops and 63 countries indicates that the potential contribution of no-Till to the sustainable intensification of agriculture is more limited than often assumed.
References
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