RESOURCEFUL CONSERVATION

Akila Wijerathna highlights the need for resource conserving production

Conservation agriculture is a resource saving production system that aims to achieve intensification and high yields while enhancing the natural resource base. This is accomplished through compliance with three interrelated principles along with plant nutrition and pest management.

According to the FAO, conservation technologies involve minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover through crop residue or cover and crop rotation for higher productivity. This concept evolved as a response to concerns of sustainability and has steadily increased globally to cover about eight percent of arable land.

For example, it takes 1,000 years to generate three centimetres of topsoil. At the current rate, farmers will no longer be able to grow food in as little as 60 years. Industrial farming has already destroyed about a third of available topsoil in the world and in another six decades, the rest could degrade to the point where nothing grows.

Indigenous views and connections to land and agriculture provide rich sources of knowledge and innovations for better land and water management policies. In sacred, ethical and reciprocal relationships with nature, they have enhanced and developed more sustainable approaches to living, and strategic options to care for the land, water and all living things particularly in the face of climate change.

However, colonialism has imposed separation from humans with decisions based on science and Western institutions.

The recent conservation movement is spreading rapidly, turning its back on industrial farming methods and reverting to agriculture as it was practised centuries ago. This means no ploughing or turning of soil. Instead, the ground is covered with crops all year round with a wide variety of plants.

Adopting this concept benefits nature and healthy soil could play a major role in controlling climate change because it absorbs massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. It also does a better job of retaining water than depleted soil – an important consideration in a world where floods are more frequent.

Over the past three decades, rapid strides have been made to evolve and spread technologies such as zero and reduced tillage systems, better crop residue management, and planting systems that enhance water and nutrient conservation.

Conservation agriculture – which is rooted in universal principles of providing permanent soil cover, minimum soil disturbance and crop rotation – is considered the principal road to sustainable agriculture. Therefore, it’s a way to achieve higher productivity while protecting natural resources and the environment.


Presently, this is practised on more than 80 million hectares in over 50 countries and expanding rapidly. In the developing world, conservation has been most successful in Brazil and Argentina, where between 45 and 60 percent of all agricultural land is said to be managed by such systems.

Practices include the use of specialised locally adapted no-till planters, a mulch cover on the soil surface and suitable crop rotation.

But the application of this concept is debatable in the business world, which is based on maximising yields while exploiting soil and agro-ecosystem resources. Rather, it’s based on optimising yields and profits, to achieve a balance of agricultural, economic and environmental benefits.

It advocates that the social and economic benefits gained from combining production and protecting the environment are greater than those from production alone.

Conservation agriculture offers a novel example for agricultural research and development, which is mainly aimed at achieving specific food grains production targets. A shift has become necessary given widespread resource degradation, which accompanied past strategies to enhance production with little concern for resource integrity.

Integrating concerns of productivity, resource conservation, soil quality and the environment is fundamental to sustained productivity growth.

Developing and promoting conservation agriculture systems will be highly demanding in terms of the knowledge base. This will call for scientists’ enhanced capacity to address problems from a systems perspective, and be able to
work in close partnerships
with farmers and other stakeholders, and strengthen knowledge and information sharing mechanisms.

Sustainable agriculture relies on practices that help maintain ecological equilibrium and encourage natural regenerative processes – such as nitrogen fixation, nutrient cycling, soil regeneration, and protecting the natural enemies of pests and diseases, as well as the targeted use of inputs.

Systems that rely on such approaches are not only able to support high levels of productivity but also preserve biodiversity and safeguard the environment.

Conservation agriculture has emerged as a new paradigm to achieve sustained production. It is a major step towards transitioning to sustainable agriculture.