Preface to Special Issue on Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification

摘要

Soil erosion and nutrient losses, depleting soil organic matter and water resources, ever increasing cost of production and scarcity of agricultural labor are some of the key constraints of conventional intensive tillage based agricultural production system. Conservation agriculture (CA) as an alternative system to conventional agriculture consists of minimum soil disturbance, maintenance of soil cover and crop rotations. It has been reported that CA increases the systems productivity resulting in yield differences ranging from 20 to 120% for CA compared with conventional tillage systems [1-6]. Beneficial impacts in terms of resource efficiency include reduced need for fertilizer application over time, reduced labor demand, lower runoff and increase resilience to pest and disease. All these result in significant savings, which, combined with yield increases, may translate to significant financial benefits for farmers relative to conventional ploughing practice.