Knowledge Base

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size

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

Making Conservation Tillage Conventional, building a future on 25 years of research : research and extension perspective Featured

Author(s)
Rolf Derpsch
Media Type
Conference
Published in
E. van Santen (ed.) 2002. Making Conservation Tillage Conventional: Building a Future on 25 Years of Research. Proc. of 25th Annual Southern Conservation Tillage Conference for Sustainable Agriculture. Auburn, AL 24-26 June 2002. Special Report no. 1. Alabama Agric. Expt. Stn. and Auburn University, AL 36849. USA.
Web Link 1
www.ag.auburn.edu/auxiliary/nsdl/scasc/Proceedings/2002/Derp...
Although no-till (NT) has shown numerous advantages over conventional tillage methods, the technology has shown relatively slow adoption rates in many regions of the world. In this paper, some of the reasons for slow adoption are analyzed. Mindset is probably among the biggest obstacles to expanded no-till use. Knowledge is also among the main constraints to expanded NT adoption. Although research has generated copious knowledge, this knowledge is often not reaching the farmer. Sometimes conditions for the utilization of technology are not met. Technology diffusion investigations show that farmer-to-farmer extension is one of the most effective ways of achieving rapid adoption of innovations. A greater effort has to be made in creating societal awareness of the many positive effects of NT, not only for farmers themselves but for society as a whole. Research priorities should be directed towards intensifying work with green manure cover crops, crop rotations, biological control of diseases, pests and weeds, soil biology, adaptation of NT to site-specific conditions using a systems approach and on-farm research. The technology should also be developed further for small farmers and research should be done with a greater variety of crops in order to widen the possibilities of crop rotations. Finally a greater effort has to be made in analyzing the economics of NT in a systems approach, taking all on-farm and off-farm benefits of the system into consideration.


Advanced Search