ABSTRACT
Conservation Agriculture (CA) technologies are the future of sustainable agriculture. There are potential benefits of CA across different agro-ecoregions and farmers’ groups. The benefits range from the nano-level (improving soil properties) to the micro-level (saving inputs, reducing cost of production, increasing farm income), and macro-level (reducing poverty, improving food security, alleviating global warming). Despite several advantages, there has been relatively slow adoption of this sustainable agricultural system on smallholder farms under Indian conditions. Realizing the potential impacts of CA, efforts have been made under Consortia Research Platform on Conservation Agriculture in a farmer-participatory mode for refinement of the CA-based crop production system. It has been envisaged that adoption of CA practices not only resulted in yield levels on par with conventional tillage systems for soybean, wheat, and chickpea crops but also led to a 20–25% reduction in energy consumption and a reduction in the cost of land preparation. An overall saving to the extent of Rs 5000 per ha was accrued as compared to farmers’ usual practice, besides other benefits such as natural resource conservation, reduced emissions of greenhouse gases, and better resilience to climatic extremes. However, moving from conventional to CA-based technologies involves a paradigm shift in key elements including approaches to develop component technologies of cultivar choices, nutrient, water, and weed and pest management, while optimizing cropping systems.
