Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF
for sustainable agriculture, land use and ecosystem management
Amir Kassam
Moderator
Global CA-CoP
URL: http://www.fao.org/conservation-agriculture
Regional CA websites:
URL: http://www.act-africa.org/
URL: https://ecaf.org/
URL: http://www.caa-ap.org/
URL: http://caapas.org/
Conservation Agriculture (CA) is an ecological approach to regenerative sustainable agriculture and ecosystem management based on the practical application of context-specific and locally adapted three interlinked principles of: (i) Continuous no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance (no-till seeding/planting and weeding, and minimum soil disturbance with all other farm operations including harvesting); (ii) permanent maintenance of soil mulch cover (crop biomass, stubble and cover crops); and (iii) diversification of cropping system (economically, environmentally and socially adapted rotations and/or sequences and/or associations involving annuals and/or perennials, including legumes and cover crops). These practices are complemented with other complementary good agricultural production and land management practices to generate and sustain optimum performance.
CA systems are present in all continents, involving rainfed and irrigated systems including annual cropland systems, perennial systems, orchards and plantation systems, agroforestry systems, crop-livestock systems, pasture and rangeland systems, organic production systems and rice-based systems. CA systems operate regeneratively at multiple levels to optimally harness a range of productivity, economic, environmental, and social benefits as well as address local and global concerns related to food and water security, climate change, land degradation, biodiversity and smallholder agricultural development.
Conservation Tillage, Reduced Tillage, Low tillage and Minimum Tillage are not CA, and nor is No-Till on its own. For a practice or a method to be referred to as a CA practice or method, it must be part of a CA system. If not, then it is what it is, a practice or a method similar to any other with its own name e.g., no-till seeding, or mulching, or crop diversification, etc. There is no such thing as partial CA.
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