What is the goal of Conservation Agriculture?

Conservation Agriculture (CA) aims to conserve, improve and make more efficient use of natural resources through integrated management of available soil, water and biological resources combined with external inputs. It contributes to environmental conservation as well as to enhanced and sustained agricultural production. It can also be referred to as resource-efficient / resource effective agriculture.

What are the characteristics of Conservation Agriculture?

Conservation Agriculture maintains a permanent or semi-permanent organic soil cover. This can be a growing crop or a dead mulch. Its function is to protect the soil physically from sun, rain and wind and to feed soil biota. The soil micro-organisms and soil fauna take over the tillage function and soil nutrient balancing. Mechanical tillage disturbs this process. Therefore, zero or minimum tillage and direct seeding are important elements of CA. A varied crop rotation is also important to avoid disease and pest problems [Taken from FAO homepage].

In Brazil, CA spread to be the largeest success - but the method is also disputed. Many farmers rely heavily on herbicides to remove pest plants. These herbicides may either include resistant chemicals that can then accumulate in large-scale usage, or rely completely on Genetically modified Organisms (GMO) that rely on encymic herbicides, like Roundup from Monsanto. While Round-up is enzymic and fully bio-degradable, it makes farmers strongly reliant on seed markets.

Traditional, indigenous cultivation (like slash & burn, the Mexican Milpa and permaculture) are build on the same principles of soil conservation, and are therefore also considered Conservation Agriculture.

Other terms used are zero-tillage, no-tillage and others.

See also: biodiversity, Sustainable agriculture