CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
for sustainable production intensification

Dear CA-COP members,
The UN General Assembly has approved Thailand's proposal to recognise 2015 as the International Year of Soils (IYS). It will be formally launched on 5th December this year, with the celebration of the first official UN World Soil Day. The Global Soils Partnership, hosted by FAO, is providing the Secretariat and has already created a multi-lingual website and logo (http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/en). The objectives set for the IYS are listed on this site.
While there is a great deal of talk about the threats to soil resources, members of our CA-COP and the farmers that we represent are already engaged on a vast scale as the leaders of a revolution in the way in which farming is practised. Small and large-scale farmers in all regions of the world have adopted CA and in so doing are conserving soil resources, enhancing water retention and its availability to crops, and cutting greenhouse gas emissions through carbon retention and reduced farm power use, while raising productivity and improving their incomes.
Yet, in spite of the extraordinary changes that we are making in the management of well over 100 million hectares of farmland, the significance of CA and related approaches to land management is hardly noticed even by many other farmers let alone the general public.
The IYS would seem to provide an excellent opportunity for us to tell the world about what we are doing and to inspire others to join our revolution.
I would,
therefore, very much welcome your suggestions as to what the CA-COP and its
members might best do individually and jointly during IYS
to broaden public knowledge of CA, to boost its uptake and to
enhance CA practices.
Please submit you proposals, even in a very preliminary form, to me between now and Friday 28th November, so that I can put together a short statement of intent on behalf of the CA-COP for submission to the IYS Secretariat on World Soil Day.
Amir Kassam
Moderator
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: www.fao.org/ag/ca
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