Field Actions Science Reports The journal of field actions Special Issue 6 | 2012 Reconciling Poverty Eradication and Protection of the Environment An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensification: Global perspectives and developments Une approche écologiquement durable de l’intensification de la production agricole : perspectives globales et développements Un enfoque ecológicamente sostenible de la intensificación de la producción agrícola: perspectivas globales y avances Amir Kassam and Theodor Friedrich Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/1382 ISSN: 1867-8521 Publisher Institut Veolia Electronic reference Amir Kassam and Theodor Friedrich, « An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensification: Global perspectives and developments », Field Actions Science Reports [Online], Special Issue 6 | 2012, Online since 17 April 2012, connection on 01 May 2019. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/factsreports/1382 Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License © Author(s) 2012. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. http://factsreports.revues.org/1382 Published 17 April 2012 An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensification: Global perspectives and developments1 Amir Kassam and Theodor Friedrich Plant Production and Protection Division, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Rome, Italy Abstract. The root cause of agricultural land degradation and decreasing productivity–as seen in terms of loss of soil health–is our low soil­carbon farming paradigm of intensive tillage which disrupts and debilitates many important soil­mediated ecosystem functions. For the most part agricultural soils in tillage­based farming without organic surface residue protection are becoming de­structured and compacted, exposed to increased runoff and erosion, and soil life and biodiversity is deprived of habitat and starved of organic matter, leading to decrease in soil’s biological recuperating capacity. Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a cropping system based on no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent organic mulch soil cover, and crop diversiication. It, is an effective solution to stopping agri­ cultural land degradation, for rehabilitation, and for sustainable crop production intensiication. CA is now adopted by large and small farmers on some 125 million hectares across all continents and is spreading at an annual rate of about 7 million hectares. Advantages offered by CA to farmers include better livelihood and income, decrease in inancial risks, and climate change adaptability and mitigation. For the small manual farmer, CA offers ultimately up to 50% labour saving, less drudgery, stable yields, and improved food security. To the mechanised farmers CA offers lower fuel use and less machinery and maintenance costs, and reduced inputs and cost of production (including labour when CA involves the use of integrated weed management. In pro­poor development programmes, every effort should be made to help producers adopt CA production systems. This is because CA produces more from less, can be adopted and practiced by smallholder poor farmers, builds on the farmer’s own natural resource base, does not entirely depend on purchased derived inputs, and is relatively less costly in the early stages of production intensiication. Keywords. Conservation Agriculture, paradigms, no­till system, ecosystem approach. 1 Introduction Challenges arising from global economic and population growth, pervasive rural poverty, degrading natural resources in agriculture land use, and climate change are forcing eco­ logical sustainability elements to be integrated into agri­ cultural production intensiication. The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that the quality and direction of the dominant, tillage­based, agricultural production systems world­wide, and the agricultural supply chains that support 1 The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and not of FAO. Correspondence to: Amir Kassam Kassamamir@aol.com them, have moved dangerously off course onto a path of de­ clining productivity and increasing negative externalities (MEA, 2005; WDR, 2008; McIntyre et al., 2008; Foresight, 2011). This path is considered to be unsustainable ecologi­ cally as well as economically and socially, and is being driv­ en by the consequences of unquestioned faith and reliance on the dominant ‘industrialised agriculture’ mentality of tech­ nological interventions of genetics and agrochemicals in till­ age­based agriculture (DEFRA, 2002, 2008; Kassam, 2008). Now increasingly known as the ‘old paradigm’, this way of farming since WWII was seen as the best option for produc­ tion intensiication and agricultural development to keep hunger and famine at bay after WWII. Subsequently, this paradigm was thought to be a partial solution also for poverty alleviation in the developing countries. This version of agriculture, whether industrialised or not, in which the soil structure, soil life and organic matter are A. Kassam and T. Friedrich: An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensiication mechanically destroyed every season and the soil has no organic cover, is no longer suficiently adequate to meet the agricultural and rural resource management needs and de­ mands of the 21st century. The future requires farming to be multi­functional and at the same time ecologically, economi­ cally and socially sustainable so that it can deliver ecosystem goods and services as well as livelihoods to producers and society. Farming needs to effectively address local, national and international challenges. These challenges include: food, water and energy insecurity, climate change, pervasive rural poverty, and degradation of natural resources. It is now clear that the root cause of our agricultural land degradation and deceasing productivity–as seen in terms of loss of soil health–is our low soil­carbon farming paradigm of intensive tillage which disrupts and debilitates many important soil­mediated ecosystem functions. The decrease in soil carbon due to tillage occurs even more rapidly in the tropics due to higher temperatures compared with temperate zones. For the most part our soils in tillage­based farming without organic surface residue protection are becoming de­structured, our landscape is exposed and unprotected by organic mulch, and soil life is deprived of habitat and starved of organic matter. Taken together, this loss of soil biodiversity, increase in soil organic matter decease, de­ struction of soil structure and its biological recuperating capacity, increased soil compaction, runoff and erosion, and infestation by pests, pathogens and weeds, relect the current degraded state of the health of many of our soils globally (Montgomery, 2007). Further, the condition of our soils is being exacerbated by: (a) applying excessive mineral fertilisers on to farm land that has been losing its ability to respond to inputs due to degra­ dation in soil health, and (b) reducing or doing away with crop diversity and rotations (which were largely in place around the time of WWII) due to agrochemical inputs and commodity­based market forces. The situation is leading to further problems of increased threats from insect pests, dis­ eases and weeds against which farmers are forced to apply ever more pesticides and herbicides, and which further dam­ age biodiversity and pollute the environment. However, we also know that the solution for sustainable farming has been known for a long time, at least since the mid­thirties when the mid­west of USA suffered massive dust storms and soil degradation due to intensive ploughing and harrowing of the prairies. For instance, in 1943, Edward Faulkner wrote a book ‘The Ploughman’s Folly’ in which he stated that there is no scientiic evidence for the need to plough. More recently, David Montgomery in his well­ researched book ‘Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations’ shows that generally with any form of tillage including non­ inversion tillage the rate of soil degradation (loss of soil health) and soil erosion is greater than the rate of soil for­ mation. According to Montgomery’s research, tillage has caused the destruction of agricultural resource base and of its productive capacity nearly everywhere throughout human history, and continues to do so. For these natural science writers as far back as 1943, till­ age is not compatible with sustainable agriculture. We only have to look at the various international assessments of the 2 large­scale degradation of our land resource base and the loss of productivity globally to reach a consensus as to whether or not the further promotion of any form of tillage­ based agriculture is a wise development strategy. We con­ tend that to continue with intensive tillage agriculture now verges on irresponsibility towards society and nature. Thus we maintain that with tillage­based agriculture in all agro­ecologies that can meet climatic, soil and terrain re­ quirements for crop growth, no matter how different and unsuitable they may seem for no­till farming, crop produc­ tivity (eficiency) and output cannot be optimized to the full potential. There might be environments and situations, for example water logging, where no­tillage would not work satisfactorily. But if the root problems in those cases cannot be addressed differently, for example by drainage, it is questionable whether tillage based farming would be ad­ visable under these conditions as alternative. Crop farming in such places should better be abandoned. Further, agri­ cultural land under tillage is not fully able to deliver the needed range and quality of environmental services that are mediated by ecosystem functions in the soil system. Obviously, something must change. 2 Farming paradigms Essentially, we have two farming paradigms operating, and both aspire to sustainability. (1) The tillage­based farming systems, including intensive tillage with inversion plough­ ing during the last century, aims at modifying soil structure to create a clean seed bed for planting seeds and to bury weeds or incorporate residues. This is the interventionist paradigm in which most aspects of crop production are con­ trolled by technological interventions such as soil tilling, modern varieties, protective or curative pest, pathogen and weed control with agrochemicals, and the application of mineral fertilizers for plant nutrition. (2) The no­tillage farming systems, since the forties or so, allow for a predomi­ nantly ecosystem approach, and can be productive and eco­ logically sustainable. This is the agro-ecological paradigm characterised by minimal disturbance of the soil and the natural environment, use of traditional or modern adapted varieties, plant nutrition from a mix of organic and non­ organic sources including biological nitrogen ixation, an integrated approach to pest management leaving curative pesticides as a last resort, and the use of both natural and managed biodiversity to produce food, raw materials and other ecosystem services. Crop production based on an eco­ system or agro­ecological approach can sustain the health of farmland already in use, and can regenerate land left in poor condition by past misuse. The post­WWII agricultural policy placed increasing reli­ ance upon ‘new’ high yielding seeds, more intensive tillage of various types and heavy and more powerful machines, combined with even more chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and mono­cropping. According to our read­ ing, factories producing nitrates for manufacturing explo­ sives needed for WWII quickly had to ind an alternate market once the war ended. The crop production sector was a sitting target for the explosives salesmen who went around Field Actions Science Reports A. Kassam and T. Friedrich: An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensiication • more pest problems (breakdown of food­webs for micro­organisms and natural pest control); • falling input eficiency & factor productivities, de­ clining yields; • reduced resilience, reduced sustainability; • poor adaptability to climate­change and its mitiga­ tion; and • higher production costs, lower farm productivity and proit, degraded ecosystem services. 3 A solution: no-till agro-ecological system Figure 1. Consequence of intensive­tillage paradigm. Notice that due to soil compaction and loss in water iniltration abil­ ity caused by regular soil tillage leads to impeded drainage and looding after a thunder storm in the ploughed ield (right) and no looding in the no­till ield (left). Photograph taken in June 2004 in a plot from a long­term ield trial “Oberacker” at Zollikofen close to Berne, Switzerland, start­ ed in 1994 by SWISS NO­TILL. The three water illed “cavities” in the no­till ield derive from soil samples taken for “spade tests” prior to the thunder storm. (Credit: Wolfgang Sturny) convincing farmers that high yields and more proit could be obtained with mineral nitrogen and that there was presum­ ably no real need for crop diversiication and rotations with legumes or for adding organic sources of plant nutrients or animal manure. This technological interventionist approach became the accepted paradigm for production intensiica­ tion, and was promoted globally along with genetically en­ hanced modern varieties–referred to as the Green Revolution paradigm of the 50’s and 60’s that included the Asian Green Revolution particularly in the irrigated rice­wheat systems in the Indo­Gangetic Plains of south Asia. While the Green Revolution raised crop yields and total output of food staples, and averted a looming food crisis in south Asia, it also resulted in the following situation in most agricultural landscapes in the tropics and outside in the sub­tropics and temperate environments: • loss of SOM (soil organic matter), porosity, aeration, biota (=decline in soil health) ­> collapse of soil structure ­> surface sealing, often accompanied by mechanical compaction, ­> decrease in iniltration ­> waterlogging ­> looding) (Figure 1); • loss of water as runoff and of soil as sediment; • loss of time, seeds, fertilizer, pesticide (erosion, leaching); • less capacity to capture and slowly release water and nutrients; • less eficiency of mineral fertilizer: “The crops have become ‘addicted’ to fertilizers”; • loss of biodiversity in the ecosystem, below & above soil surface; www.factsreports.org Conservation Agriculture (CA), also known as a ‘no­till’ farming system, is an effective solution to stopping agricul­ tural land degradation, for rehabilitation, and for sustainable crop production intensiication. CA has gained momentum in North and South America, in Australia and New Zealand, in Asia in Kazakhstan and China, and in the southern Africa re­ gion. CA has the following three core inter­linked principles (Friedrich et al., 2009): • No or minimum mechanical soil disturbance and seeding or planting directly into undisturbed or untilled soil, in order to maintain or improve soil organic matter content, soil structure and overall soil health. • Enhancing and maintaining organic mulch cover on the soil surface, using crops, cover crops or crop residues. This protects the soil surface, conserves wa­ ter and nutrients, promotes soil biological activity and contributes to integrated weed and pest management. • Diversiication of species–both annuals and perennials ­ in associations, sequences and rotations that can in­ clude trees, shrubs, pastures and crops, all contributing to enhanced crop and livestock nutrition and improved system resilience. These principles and key practices appear to offer an en­ tirely appropriate alternative to most modern and traditional tillage­based agricultural production systems in the tropical, sub­tropical and temperate agro­ecologies, with a potential capacity to slow and reverse productivity losses and environ­ mental damages. In conjunction with other complementary good crop management practices for integrated crop nutri­ tion, pest and water management, and good quality adapted seeds, the implementation of the CA principles provide a solid foundation for sustainable production intensiication. These principles can be integrated into most rainfed and irrigated production systems to strengthen their ecological sustaina­ bility, including horticulture, agro­forestry, organic farming, System of Rice Intensiication (SRI), ‘slash and mulch’ rota­ tional farming, and integrated crop­livestock systems, CA is a lead example of the agro­ecological paradigm for sustainable production intensiication now adopted by FAO as seen in its recent publication ‘Save and Grow’. Empirical evidence shows that farmer­led transformation of agricultural production systems based on Conservation Agriculture (CA) is gathering momentum globally. CA, comprising minimum 3 A. Kassam and T. Friedrich: An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensiication Table 1. Area under CA by continent Continent Area (hectare) Percent of total South America 55,464,100 45 North America 39,981,000 32 Australia & New Zealand 17,162,000 14 Asia 4,723,000 4 Russia & Ukraine 5,100,000 3 Europe 1,351,900 1 Africa 1,012,840 1 124,794,840 100 World total mechanical soil disturbance (no­till and direct seeding), or­ ganic soil cover, and crop species diversiication, is now esti­ mated to be practiced globally on about 125 M ha (some 9% of global arable cropland) across all continents (Table 1) and all agricultural ecologies, with some 50% of the area located in the developing regions. During the last decade, cropland under CA has been increasing yearly at a rate of some 7 mil­ lion hectares, mainly in the Americas, Australia, and, more recently, in Asia and Africa (Friedrich et al., 2012). For the farmer the initial drivers for adoption of CA are mostly erosion or drought problems, as well as cost pressure. However, drivers of change that are valid for large scale farmers are different from small­scale farmers. Water erosion has been the main driver in Brazil, wind erosion and cost of production in the Canadian and American Prairies, and drought and cost issues in Australia and Kazakhstan. More recently, concern about the economic and environmental unsustainability of traditional approaches to agriculture inter­ nationally, including small­scale farming in Africa and Asia, has stimulated governments to seriously consider CA whose principles can be implemented by small or large farmers in most agro­ecologies to raise productivity and harness envi­ ronmental services, avoid and recuperate from land degrada­ tion, and respond to climate change. In the adoption of or transformation to CA, there are con­ straints and opportunities that must be addressed in differ­ ent ways in different places depending on their nature. These include: • Weeds that can be controlled using integrated mana­ gement practices involving a combination of surface mulch, cover crops, rotations, mechanical management and herbicides. • Net labour requirement which by and large is reduced over time with increase in labour productivity (in terms of output per unit input) in all CA systems whether with manual, animal or mechanised farm power. 4 • Larger farmers are not the only beneiciaries of CA. Small farmers with any farm power source can practice CA and harness a range of beneits. Similarly, ield­ based horticulture production can also beneit from CA, whether small or large scale. • Livestock can create a competition for residues but over time CA generates more biomass which can per­ mit effective management of functional biomass to meet the needs of livestock and of soil health. A combi­ nation of on­farm livestock management and area inte­ gration of crop­livestock with community participation provides a basis for overcoming this constraint. • Temperate areas of Europe are claimed to be different from other areas where CA has been widely adopted. This appears to be a myth, as seen from the viewpoint of almost a ‘wholesale’ transformation to CA in some states in Canada and in Western Australia and parts of USA, and more recently the introduction and growing evidence of CA in Finland, Switzerland, UK, France, Italy, Germany and Denmark. Constraints to CA adoption appear to be surmountable for up­scaling when: • Farmers are working together in testing and sharing experience and generating new knowledge, and using the innovation network approach as an effective way of CA extension. • Appropriate and affordable no­till equipment and machinery is available. • There is relevant and problem solving knowledge generation and technical capacity in the research and extension system to offer advice to farmers, industry and policy makers. • Eventual risks involved in transforming to no­till sys­ tems are buffered through appropriate insurances and/ or incentives. • There is effective policy and institutional support for adoption and widespread uptake. In the developing regions, especially among larger mech­ anized farms there has been spontaneous adoption of CA. However, the adoption process more generally, including for small holder farmers, is still slow and has not yet entered into the exponential uptake phase. In recent years the situa­ tion has begun to change in Asia and Africa and there is already growing government commitment and programmes in these regions to promote CA, including for small scale farmers. In Africa, the Southern Africa region is at an ad­ vanced stage of early adoption with countries such as South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania leading the way. In Asia, small farmers in China and India and large farmers in Kazakhstan have made sig­ niicant progress with no­till systems in recent years. However, a more coordinated approach and harmonized policy will be needed for CA to really take off and provide beneits to small holder farmers and bring land degradation Field Actions Science Reports A. Kassam and T. Friedrich: An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensiication under control. Empirical evidence across many countries has shown that the rapid adoption and spread of CA requires a change in behaviour of all stakeholders. For the farmers, a mechanism to experiment, learn and adapt is a prerequisite. Policy­makers and institutional leaders need to fully under­ stand the longer­term productivity, economic, social and environmental beneits of CA for producers and the society at large. 4 CA–an opportunity to save and make money, alleviate rural poverty internationally and to improve the planet Advantages offered by CA to small or large farmers include better livelihood and income. For the small farmer under a manual system, CA offers ultimately 50% labour saving, less drudgery, more stable yields, and improved food security. To the mechanised farmers CA offers lower fuel use and less machinery and maintenance costs. Reduced cost of produc­ tion with CA is a key to better proitability and competitive­ ness, as well as keeping food affordable. Against the background of rising input, food and energy costs, land degradation and climate change, experience of switching to CA conirms that the known advantages include higher soil carbon levels, microorganism and meso fauna ac­ tivity over time, minimisation or avoidance of soil erosion, the reversal of soil degradation, improved aquifer recharge due to greater density and depth of soil biopores due to more earthworms and more extensive and deeper rooting. CA advantages also include adaptation to climate change due to increased iniltration and soil moisture storage and increased availability of soil moisture to crops, reduced runoff and looding, and improved drought and heat tolerance by crops, and climate change mitigation through reduced emissions due to 50­70% lower fuel use, 20­50% lower fertilizer/pesti­ cides, 50% reduction in machinery and use of smaller machines, C­sequestration of 0.20­0.7 or more t.ha­1.y­1 de­ pending on the ecology and residue management, and no excess CO2 release as a result of no burning of residues (Kassam et al., 2009; Corsi et al., 2012). To the community and society, CA offers public goods that include: less pollution, lower cost for water treatment, more­ stable river lows with reduced looding and maintenance, and cleaner air and less siltation of dams (Mello and Raij, 2006; ITAIPU, 2011). At the landscape level, CA offers the ad­ vantages of better ecosystem services including: provision of food and clean water, regulation of climate and pests/diseases, support of nutrient cycles, pollination, cultural recreation, en­ hancement of biodiversity, and erosion control. At the global level, the public goods are: improvements in groundwater re­ sources, soil resources, biodiversity and mitigation of climate change (Haugen­Kozyra and Goddard, 2009). CA is highly relevant to several elements of the global agenda. It is the base element for combining intensive, highly productive agriculture with sustainability and ecosystem services, which responds to the strategic Objective A of FAO that deals with the promotion of sustainable produc­ tion intensiication based on a new paradigm of agriculture (FAO, 2011), improving the prospects for achieving the UN www.factsreports.org Millennium Development Goals. For the future of agricul­ ture, CA comprises the best available set of agro­ecological concepts and production practices for climate change adapta­ tion and mitigation, addressing the risks of climate variabili­ ty, and reducing the vulnerability to drought, lood, heat, frost and wind. There is worldwide evidence from research and farmer practice to show that large productivity, economic, so­ cial and environmental beneits for the farmers and for the society can be harnessed through the adoption of CA prac­ tices. For example, if agriculture is to provide a signiicant sink for carbon and to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this can be done cost­effectively through wide scale adoption of CA, thus contributing to climate change mitigation. Further, CA helps to improve rural livelihoods by contributing to rural poverty reduction and eventually even to reversing the rural­urban migration trends. However, there is still a need for more concerted and sustained efforts to promote CA globally, requiring the in­ volvement of all sectors and stakeholders, from farmers, research and extension across to input supply industries and output value chain service providers to policy makers and institutional leaders to educational and vocational training institutions. It is this integrated stakeholder engagement that has been responsible for the rapid uptake of CA in large parts of the Americas and Australia. 5 Pro-poor production systems and poverty alleviation Currently, it is estimated that three­quarter of the bottom bil­ lion are rural­based and rely on agriculture for their food security and livelihood. As long as they ‘must’ remain in ag­ riculture as producers and agriculture workers, every effort should be made to help producers to adopt sustainable pro­ duction systems such as CA (FAO, 2011, www.fao.org/ag/ ca), and System of Rice Intensiication (SRI) (Kassam et al., 2011b, http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu) which are effective in pro­poor development for small farmers, as well as have the potential for enabling small farmers to produce ‘more from less’ and can offer surplus food to the local markets at a lower price. SRI is an alternative agro­ecological approach to rice production in which the soil is not looded but kept moist, allowing the rice plant to grow a large root system. Together with a different set of crop management practices including transplanting young seedlings in wider spacing, SRI methods lead to increased yield and reduction in the use of production inputs of seeds, water, nutrients, pesticides and even labour. With aerobic soil conditions, SRI system can be integrated into CA systems, offering further productivity and environ­ mental beneits, including reduced methane emission. A quarter of the bottom billion is urban­based. Their food security will depend on wage employment within the eco­ nomy, as it grows and diversiies, to be able to purchase affordable food from the market. Any safety­net social sup­ port for urban­based as well as rural­based poor families, in terms of cash and access to food rations, would help to im­ prove food security. Similarly, training of youth and adult from the urban and rural poor families for skills develop­ ment would improve chances of wage employment. Support 5 A. Kassam and T. Friedrich: An ecologically sustainable approach to agricultural production intensiication to educate the children of poor urban and rural families would eventually help them to break out of the downward spirals and poverty traps. However, in the long run, all stakeholders–farmers, supply and value chain service providers, academics, researchers, extension agents, policy makers, civil servants, consumers– must become engaged in understanding and harnessing the full power of the no­till agro­ecological paradigm. This will contribute to making farming and rural resource manage­ ment careers an attractive source of livelihood to future generations who must take a custodial view of their role in managing the planet’s natural resources for food security and economic development. 6 Concluding Remarks CA principles appear to be universally applicable because the practice of CA is not a blanket recommendation or recipe for everywhere (also called silver bullet or “panacea”) but has to be adapted to the site and farmer circumstances. CA produces more from less, can be adopted and practiced by smallholder poor farmers, builds on the farmer’s own natural resource base, does not entirely depend on purchased derived inputs, and is relatively less costly even in the early stages of sustainable production intensiication. More em­ phasis should be put on the constraints and challenges in overcoming the hindrances in tropical and subtropical small­ scale farmer areas in Africa and Asia and the solutions that might be different from the larger scale farmers of Brazil and Argentina. CA being a new paradigm for most farmers globally, spe­ cial emphasis must be placed on the need of a change in mindset amongst farmers especially in traditional farming communities in the North and the South and the importance of involving all stakeholders to apply a holistic approach in CA promotion that is just as much farmer driven as it is science driven and supported by public and private sectors and national agriculture development policies. 6 References DEFRA (2002) Farming and Food: A Sustainable Future. Report of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food. January 2002. DEFRA, UK DEFRA (2009c) Safeguarding Our Soils: A strategy for England. September 2009. DEFRA,UK (http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/ quality/land/soil/documents/soil-strategy.pdf) FAO (2011). Save and Grow: a policymaker’s guide to the sustainable intensiication of smallholder crop production. FAO, Rome, 102 pp. Foresight (2011). The Future of Food and Farming. 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