Record Details

CIMMYT Institutional Multimedia Publications Repository

View Archive Info
 

Metadata

 
Field Value
 
Title Beyond conservation agriculture
 
Names Giller, K.E.
Andersson, J.A.
Corbeels, M.
Kirkegaard, J.
Mortensen, D.
Erenstein, O.
Vanlauwe, B.
Date Issued 2015 (iso8601)
Abstract Global support for Conservation Agriculture (CA) as a pathway to Sustainable
Intensification is strong. CA revolves around three principles: no-till (or minimal soil
disturbance), soil cover, and crop rotation. The benefits arising from the ease of
crop management, energy/cost/time savings, and soil and water conservation led to
widespread adoption of CA, particularly on large farms in the Americas and Australia,
where farmers harness the tools of modern science: highly-sophisticated machines,
potent agrochemicals, and biotechnology. Over the past 10 years CA has been promoted
among smallholder farmers in the (sub-) tropics, often with disappointing results. Growing
evidence challenges the claims that CA increases crop yields and builds-up soil carbon
although increased stability of crop yields in dry climates is evident. Our analyses suggest
pragmatic adoption on larger mechanized farms, and limited uptake of CA by smallholder
farmers in developing countries. We propose a rigorous, context-sensitive approach
based on Systems Agronomy to analyze and explore sustainable intensification options,
including the potential of CA. There is an urgent need to move beyond dogma and
prescriptive approaches to provide soil and crop management options for farmers to
enable the Sustainable Intensification of agriculture.
Genre Article
Access Condition CIMMYT manages Intellectual Assets as International Public Goods. The user is free to download, print, store and share this work. In case you want to translate or create any other derivative work and share or distribute such translation/derivative work, please contact CIMMYT-Knowledge-Center@cgiar.org indicating the work you want to use and the kind of use you intend; CIMMYT will contact you with the suitable license for that purpose.
Identifier http://hdl.handle.net/10883/4619