Does Conservation Agriculture Work for Small-Scale Farmers in Developing Nations? A Mini-Review

Abstract

In recent years, conservation agriculture (CA) is increasingly being promoted among small-scale farmers in the tropics as well as subtropics. The myriad of research results generated from the adoption of CA ranges from significantly higher benefits than conventional farming to disappointing results. Although CA has been recommended by several researchers as a part of sustainable agriculture, there might be certain gaps and issues related to practicing CA in small-scale farms. Do the benefits from CA remain the same for small-scale farmers? How well does CA fit with agricultural, social, economic, and political contexts for small-scale farmers particularly in developing nations? One of the low adoption rates of CA in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is the lack of economic incentive and high machinery cost for small-scale farmers in which the process of conversion from conventional farming to CA is not profitable. There might be certain limitations in the potential for subsidizing farmers to adopt CA using payments for ecosystem services/carbon credit schemes. Therefore, the smallholding farmers with low risk-taking abilities are unsure of practicing CA in their farms despite proven economic benefits from CA in several parts of the world. In this regard, there is an urgent need to move ahead of the prescriptive approaches to provide sustainable soil and crop management options for small-scale farmers in the region. Therefore, this chapter will focus to answer the question: “Does CA work for small-scale farmers in developing countries?” or “Is it just the mindset of the people or the negative results of CA trials that led to low CA adoption in different parts of the world?”