*CA-CoP* *CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE **for sustainable production intensification* *Dear Subscribers, * *Updating CA Data base in AquaStat, FAO** ** * *We are updating the CA land area data base displayed in AquaStat ( www.fao.org/ag/ca), and will be contacting our regular sources of information in the next few weeks. However, anyone else who would like to provide information on the land area under CA systems at the national level would be most welcome. Ideally, we would appreciate receiving the CA area information at the sub-national level, together with any relevant historical information on adoption, cropping pattern, farm size, agro-ecology, constraints, etc. * *For the recording please adhere to the reference quantification of the CA definition on the FAO-CA website (http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/6c.html):* *1. Minimum Soil Disturbance: Minimum soil disturbance refers to low disturbance no-tillage and direct seeding. The disturbed area for seeding must be less than 15 cm wide or less than 25% of the cropped area (whichever is lower). There should be no periodic tillage that disturbs a greater area than the aforementioned limits. Area under strip tillage can be included only if the disturbed area is less than the above set limits.* * 2. Maintenance of organic soil cover: Three categories are distinguished: 30-60%, >60-90% and >90% ground cover, measured immediately after the direct seeding/planting operation. For this data base, area with less than 30% cover is not considered as being under CA.* *3. Crop rotation/association: Rotation/association should involve at least 3 different crops. However, repetitive wheat or maize or rice cropping that meets requirements 1 and 2 above is not an exclusion factor for the purpose of this data collection, but rotation/association is recorded where practiced.* *We would further like to stress that the database counts actual land area under annual crops with CA (permanent no-till). Area under perennial crops will be recorded separately. No-till area by crop will not be recorded to avoid double recording of the same land area. * *Amir Kassam Moderator* Plant Production and Protection Division Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome Italy e-mail: [log in to unmask] URL: www.fao.org/ag/ca* * ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CA-Cop-L list, click the following link: &*TICKET_URL(CA-Cop-L,SIGNOFF);