Conservation Agriculture Research Updates - April 2026

This review article explores the role of farmer agency in enhancing the effect of extension models related to soil health. They want to empower farmers to innovate and adapt knowledge to identify more efficient systems. It reviews several factors that can improve farmer agency including education, economic opportunities, social networks and supportive policies. The paper proposes the need for policies and programs to improve farmer decision-making opportunities and farmer centered learning platforms, digital tools and to strengthen social networks with the hope that adoption and adaptation soil health solutions improves.

This interesting article develops a conservation agriculture appraisal index (CAAI) as a standardized conceptual framework with defined thresholds that indicates the intensity and frequency of use of each CA core principle. This index was then applied to 100 farms in 4 wheat growing regions, with and without livestock and including rainfed and irrigated systems in Australia and Mexico to quantify CA adoption. CAAI score is the sum of the scores of each core principle, accounting for the percentage of the farm area and cropping season where CA is applied based on semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and farm visits. Results show higher adoption in Australia than Mexico. No adoption of CA occurred when one of the core principles consistently scored zero within a year.

This study is undertaken at the Ifugao Rice Terraces in the Philippines, an Agricultural Heritage system. They surveyed farmers in this region on the socio-demographic, environmental, and economic factors influencing the adoption and persistence of Environmental Conservation Agriculture (ECA). They found the shift to high-yielding rice in ECA led to a decline in the use of Tinawon rice, an important component of this Heritage site. They suggest it is important to balance modern practices with continued use of the traditional system to preserve biodiversity, soil health, and cultural identity. Climate change presents both challenges and opportunities for adaptation, making it essential to integrate traditional knowledge with modern techniques to build resilience. 

This paper does a social network analysis about CA agro-ecological efficiency (CAEE) in China from 2000 to 2020. They used a couple of models  to construct a correlation matrix that was used to explore the influencing factors. The overall result was that the CAEE in China is high and the spatial correlation network showed good connectivity and accessibility. The paper recommends the government should consider the correlation between different provinces in the process of promoting conservation agriculture, and guide the marginal provinces to better integrate into the network by smoothing the circulation of production factors. The government should also formulate regional CAEE improvement strategies with consideration of local conditions, so as to realize the long-term, effective and coordinated development of conservation agriculture in different provinces

Conventional farming in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)  is resulting in soil degradation. This paper reviews current practices, challenges, and constraints to the adoption of CA in SSA to reverse this degradation. They show that CA is only adopted on 1.25% of cultivated land in SSA despite 2 decades of promotion. The paper lists 6 possible reasons for this lack of adoption of CA. They also suggest that adoption by smallholder farmers is also obstructed by socio-economic factors due to smallholder farmers’ focus on short term yield increases and their lack of access to markets, loans, and education. They conclude that wider adoption by smallholder farmers in SSA requires CA approaches that are downscaled to fit the existing tillage tools and the specific agroecological and socio-economic farm settings.

This paper from China looks at service providers as a way to promote CA. It identifies the stakeholders of normative Conservation Agriculture technology adoption behavior and the relationship between agricultural machinery service organizations, farmers and agriculture-related governments. They developed a unique evolutionary game model to evaluate the decision making characteristics of tripartite behavior and simulate the evolution trend of stakeholder behavior. They suggest that agriculture Governments, service providers and farmers can develop stable strategies. The study lays a foundation for countermeasures and suggestions to further promote farmers’ implementation of Conservation Agriculture technology.

This is an interesting paper presented at a Symposium in California  that presents results of their remote sensing research to monitor CA adoption in Southern Italy. They used an algorithm based on Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data to identify tillage changes over agricultural fields at approximately 100m resolution. They used this technique to monitor fields where Conservation Agriculture has no-tillage as a main principle. They conclude that the accuracy level (better than 80%) derived from a comparison with ground truth data provides a useful tool for practical applications.

This study explores the experiences and perspectives of smallholder farmers from 6 locations in the Eastern Gangetic Plains where promotional activities since 2013 were part of a "Sustainable and Resilient farming system intensification". There were 3 locations in India, two in Bangladesh and one in Nepal. After coding of data from semi-structured interviews with 44 experimenting farmers and 38 interested non-users, ten common themes emerged that explain why farmers stagnate in their adoption process for CA. Seven of the ten themes were non-specific to CASI and would constraint promotion and uptake of any agri-system change. 4 factors are used in this study to address agricultural change for smallholder farmers; targeting, training, targeted incentives, and time. They conclude that there is a need for a stronger focus on enabling environments rather than technological performance evaluations generically, if promotional efforts are to be successful and emerging sustainable intensification technologies are to be adopted by smallholder farmers.

This study looks at the willingness of Canadian farmers in Quebec to accept compensation (WTA) fr adopting a direct seeding, mulch based cropping system (another name for CA?) (DMC). Their results show that their famers would demand 161 C$/ha to convert to DMC although they are only willing to convert 25% of their farm to DMC. I wonder if compensation payments to encourage farmers to adopt DMC is a good idea, but the paper discusses to reasons for reluctance or choice to do so. They end that more research is needed.

This article looks at the factors that influence the adoption of conservation tillage in South Dakota. They surveyed 486 commodity crop farming operations. A modified application of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) including controls for socioeconomic and demographic indicators is used to understand farmers’ current usage of CT. Results show that three constructs of the TPB—attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control—are positively and significantly correlated with the adoption of CT. Binary logistic regression models also show that attitude and perceived behavioral control are related to farmers’ likelihood of adopting CT. Farm size and farmers’ level of education were also positively associated with CT adoption.

There has been a rise in the number of market-oriented farmers, known as `emergent farmers,' who acquire and utilize tractors and associated implements for agricultural production to Zambian agriculture. This study examined the behavioral intentions of Zambian emergent farmers concerning Mechanized Conservation Agriculture (MCA) using the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior constructs: attitudes, perceived behavior control, subjective norms, and farmers' background factors by surveying 119 emergent farmers. Factors such as media influence, social influence, technical training, and extension services had positive but insignificant effects on farmers' intention to adopt MCA. Background factors, including overall farm size, farmer's age, area under CA, and years of CA use, showed a positive and significant correlation with farmers' intention to adopt MCA.

Despite the introduction of CA to Southern Africa 3 decades ago, adoption has been low. This paper attempts to assess the effects of risk and impatience on the extent and intensity of adoption of CA in Zambia. Data was obtained from 646 households. 12% and 18% of the the smallholder respondents were impatient and risk averse, respectively. The paper discusses the reasons for these problems. They conclude that there is a need to include risk management, like crop insurance, when scaling sustainable agricultural practices to accelerate adoption.

This article assesses the adoption of CA by smallholder farmers in semi-arid areas of Tanzania. They surveyed smallholder farmers in 4 villages with a random sample of 260 households -- 134 CA adopters and 126 non-adopters. The results show that extension services led to a better quality of CA practices on CA farms. Gender, access to extension services, access to agricultural inputs, participation in farmer groups, and access to credit for agriculture significantly influenced the adoption of CA. Adopters achieved higher yields and higher farm income compared to non-adopters. They conclude that more resources are needed for better extension and mechanization to help scale up adoption of CA together with better monitoring and evaluation to measure impact and sustainability in semi-arid areas.

This paper from Uganda looks at the adoption of sustainable agricultural intensification practices (SAIPs) recommended for smallholder farmers.320 maize farmers were interviewed in 2 Districts. Results showed that improved maize varieties, conservation tillage, legume intercrop, integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), and integrated pest management (IPM) were adopted by 58, 36, 44, 52, and 56% of the farmers. Institutional factors were significant predictors of adoption. Socioeconomic factors only positively influenced adoption intensity for SAIPs. Two policy recommendations were to strengthen agricultural extension and promote the use of village level credit services to enhance adoption.

Despite CA being promoted and a possible solution for food insecurity resulting from climate shocks and soil degradation, adoption in Malawi is still low. This paper looked at social capital as a way of approving adoption. The interviewed 1512 smallholder farmers to find out how different social capital elements influenced farmer decisions to adopt CA. Factors that positively affected adoption were group membership, relations with leadership, land size, extension services, livestock ownership, and available credit. Full adoption of CA was limited compared to partial adoption. They conclude that better policy is needed to promote farmer organizations, community engagement, and training programs to enhance adoption.

I think it is appropriate to include this inaugural Keynote Speech given at the recent 9th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture in Cape Town, South Africa in July 2024. Quoted from the paper: "Conservation Agriculture has gone through a remarkable and unprecedented development. When the term was defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, it was still a fairly unknown and untested farming concept, just becoming popular in the Southern Cone of South America and being used by some few pioneers in other parts of the world. This changed with the first World Congress celebrated in 2001 in Madrid, when a global movement of Conservation Agriculture started. Some international agricultural research institutions and several national and international development organizations began working on Conservation Agriculture systems and promoting them in their projects, resulting in an exponential adoption worldwide. Extrapolating the adoption data of the last census from 2018/19 we should now have about 250-270 million hectares of annual cropland under CA, which is nearly 20% of the global cropland"

In Brazil soil and water conservation has made no-tillage the leading method for preparing land. This paper looks at the adoption rates of NT and CA within Parana State farmers using data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics' censuses from 2006-2017. Data shows a rise in the adoption of NT from 68.5% to 78.9% and CA from 14.6% to 27.7% over this time period. The highest rates were in areas where soybeans, maize and wheat are grown. The lowest in areas where pasture, sugarcane, cassava and rice are grown.

This paper looks at the status and progress made with adoption of CA in India where there has been various challenges but significant adoption in the last 20 years in developing, refining and promoting CA especially with no-till wheat in the rice-wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Farmers adopting CA understand the tradeoffs but adopt because they believe the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. The farmers benefit from lower costs, improved water and nutrient efficiency, greater crop diversity and higher yields.

This paper that includes authors from many European countries as part of the European Joint Programme for SOIL that identified 12 main soil challenges in Europe. This paper assesses the potential of various soil improving practices in terms of adoption, socio-technical barriers to adoption, and biophysical limits. 53 soil improving practices were identified. They used CA as an example they found several factors that hinder adoption including knowledge, adequate machinery, financial risks, and farming traditions. Using a models they estimated that 54% of arable land in Europe is suitable for cover cropping. They conclude that in order for soil challenges to be resolves, socio-technical and biophysical constraints to adoption need to be overcome.

This is another adoption paper from the Mediterranean region -- Morocco, Spain and Tunisia. The study objectives were to investigate the sociocultural aspects of CA adoption, where they examined farmers’ understandings of ‘good soil management’ and a ‘good farmer’ identity. Crop rotation was a prominent concept cognitively tied to fertilizer application, bridging conventional and reduced tillage practices. CA farmers’ mental models of soil management were also more complex than conventional farmers. The ability to have good productivity and experience and knowledge were the most prominent aspects of farmers’ understanding of a ‘good farmer’. For CA farmers, environmental responsibility and innovation were important, whereas for conventional farmers, tillage and the use of mineral fertilizers, was valued more highly.

This paper looks at farmer strategies for future climate variability and climate change in Tanzania. They used a cross-sectional research design in a survey of a random sample of 330 small-scale farmers. The results show that farmers use a number of strategies, but 4 key adaptation strategies - drought resistant varieties, earlier maturing varieties, resistant livestock breeds and conservation agriculture (CA) - emerged. Farmers also used more then one strategy with choice determined by multiple factors. The paper categorizes the factor into 4 groups that in summary include individual farmer/household; farm characteristics; institutional factors and; local knowledge. They suggest these factors should be available for policy development.

Sentinel sites that had promoted CA for a long time were used in this paper. The paper attempted to understand what led to the success of CA adoption. They surveyed 620 farmers in Malawi divided into two groups ; those who had contact with host farmers and a control group. Almost a third of the farmers in both groups adopted full CA over a 2-year period, but 57% of the farmers in the treatment area adopted full CA but on 7% in the control group. However, fewer farmers adopted CA for a longer period even in the treatment areas with some dis-adoption. The key adoption factors in the sentinel sites include the availability of training, dedicated longer-term extension support coupled with farmer experiential learning through demonstration plots managed by host farmers. This peer to peer learning over time is critical for sustained adoption.

This article talks about managing the soil microbiome in order to improve productivity at lower cost especially in a semi-arid zone. They studied the soil bacterial community and rhizobial diversity in long term cotton fields divided into conventional tillage monoculture systems with winter fallow (CT) and no-tillage with a mixed cover crop (M -NT) system. They used next-generation amplicon sequencing targeting rpoB gene with collected soil samples from different soil managements and seasons. Results showed that although CT had significantly greater bacterial diversity and species richness than the M-NT management, rhizobial diversity and species richness were higher in M-NT than in CT management. Both bacterial and rhizobial diversity and richness were greater in summer than in fall. Soil management altered the dominant rhizobial genus associated with cotton production systems. They suggested that incorporating legumes into a cover crop in this semi-arid cotton-growing region can initiate beneficial changes to the dynamics of the indigenous rhizobial assemblage. 

This economics paper says that adoption of CA increases production while reducing GHG emissions but adoption in the developing World is low. They suggest it takes multiple years of continuous adoption for farmers to realize positive results. The paper uses an on-farm experiment in N. Ghana to identify how incentives and peer information affects adoption. They found no overall effect of peer information but found evidence that long-term adoption increased adoption especially if benefits included higher yields.

The link above will take you to a copy of this interesting book on CA farming in  a part of Australia.It covers the history of conservation farming from the early 1960's to the early 2020's. It covers the adoption of CA and mentions some of the leading innovators - NSW State agricultural scientists, University and CSIRO scientists, consultants in the private sector, agribusiness, pesticide companies, farm machinery and engineering sector plus progressive farmers. Bare fields of tilled soil are now rarely seen.Instead the fields are covered with crop and pasture residues that protect the soil and water. There have been adoption of many varied rotations. This book salutes all those who have been part of this soil revolution.