Re-Inventing Conservation Agriculture Practices Beyond 21st Century.

Abstract

Conservation agriculture (CA) is gaining prominence and has been found to be a better option in solving food scarcity and biodiversity loss. Industrial agriculture (conventional) for a long time has been practiced with the view of maximizing food production under economic gains without environmental integrity. Approximately, 30% of the greenhouse gases emissions are produced from agricultural activities and this has contributed to environmental degradation and poor human health. To save the world from losing its potential to feed the increasing human population and interrupting ecosystem services, there is greater need to reinvent agricultural practices and develop more environmentally friendly ways of producing food and saving biodiversity. This research paper examined reinventing conservation agriculture practices beyond the 21st century by studying CA practices in two different settings both in developed and developing countries. The aim is to showcase the importance of CA as a means of saving the world from further degradation and recommend to the farmers, policy makers, researchers, scientists, politicians, economists, ecologists among others the dire need to adopt CA technologies. CA is undoubtedly an option that can result in substantial benefits for certain types of farmers in certain locations. However, benefits from CA at field level do not necessarily overcome the economic constraints at farm scale and many of these benefits are only realized in the longer term. CA profoundly alters the flow of resources (nutrients, labour and cash) at the scale of the farm and above, and hence strong trade-offs exist when implementing CA. A survey design was employed to collect data through questionnaire and interviews. The results were discussed and descriptive analysis was used. The study found that CA is a better option to improve human health through feeding on nutritious food products, protecting biodiversity and balancing ecosystem services.