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.:: Lao Knowledge Base on Conservation Agriculture ::.

Conservation Tillage – Gateway to Food Security and Sustainable Rural Development Featured

Author(s)
Kurt Steiner
Organization
GTZ, 202
Media Type
Technical report
Published in
African Conservation Tillage Network. Information Series No. 1
Web Link 1
www.act.org.zw/docs/actis01.pdf
African governments and regional organisations like SADC increasingly undertake efforts to address challenges such as poverty, food insecurity, destruction of natural resources, and HIV/AIDS, and the general stagnation of economic development. It has become obvious that agricultural development has been neglected over the past decades, despite clear evidence, that broad-based agricultural development provides an effective means for both reducing poverty and accelerating economic growth. (FAO and World Bank, 2001). While per capita food production has risen in Asia and Latin America over the last decades, it is still declining in Sub-Saharan Africa (IFAD, 2001). There are many reasons for this development. The farming systems in most parts of Africa are not sustainable. They are no longer adapted to a changing natural and socio-economic environment. They are characterised by extremely low yields, exploitation of natural resources (“soil mining”) and an increasing labour input. Only a drastic change of farming systems, a turn towards a more sustainable management of soils and an increased labour productivity can improve the situation. Conservation tillage (CT), which has revolutionised the farming systems in Latin America within the last decade, may offer a solution to Sub-Saharan Africa, too.


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