1. 4.1.2 Soil Conservation and Water Conservation
There are always strong links between measures for soil conservation and
measures for water conservation, and this applies equally in semi-arid areas.
Many measures are directed primarily to one or the other, but most contain an
element of both. Reduction of surface run-off by structures or by changes in
land management will also help to reduce erosion. Similarly, reducing erosion
will usually involve preventing splash erosion, or formation of crusts, or
breakdown of structure, all of which will increase infiltration, and so help the
water conservation.
Global achievements in soil and water conservation: The
case of Conservation Agriculture
Abstract
In response to the dust bowls of the mid-thirties in the USA, soil and water conservation
programmes involving reduced tillage were promoted to control land degradation,
particularly soil erosion. The farming and land management practices that were
considered to adequately address soil and water conservation objectives were based on
no-till seeding and maintenance of soil mulch cover. This collection of practices led to
what became known as conservation tillage, although no-till systems by definition avoid
soil disturbance by no-till direct seeding, and maintain an organic mulch cover on the
soil surface.
This article is an overview of achievements in soil and water conservation on
agricultural lands through the experience derived from the adoption and spread of
Conservation Agriculture (CA) world-wide. CA is an agro-ecological approach to
sustainable production intensification. It involves the application of three inter-linked
principles that underpin agricultural production systems based on locally formulated
practices: (i) permanent no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance, which in practice
entails direct seeding through mulch into no-till soils; (ii) maintenance of soil cover with
crop residues and green manure crops, particularly legumes; and (iii) diversified
cropping system involving annuals and perennial in rotations, sequences and
associations.
In 2011, CA had spread over 125 million hectares (9% of the global cropped land)
across all continents and most agro-ecologies, including small and large farms. In
addition, there is a significant area of CA orchards in the Mediterranean countries. CA is

2. now considered to be a practical agro-ecological approach to achieving sustainable
agriculture intensification. It offers environmental, economic and social advantages that
are not fully possible with tillage-based production systems, as well as improved
productivity and resilience, and improved ecosystem services while minimizing the
excessive use of agrochemicals, energy and heavy machinery. While there are
challenges to the adoption of CA, there is also increasing interest from producers, the
civil society, donors and private sector institutions to further promote and service the
uptake and spread of CA globally.
Key Words
• No-till;
• Soil erosion;
• Agro-ecological;
• Ecosystem services;
• Save and grow
1. Introduction
Reducing soil disturbance by tillage in agricultural land began in the Great Plains in the
USA in the 1930s in response to the devastation caused by prolonged drought
(Derpsch, 2004). This period became known as the "dust bowls". Initial research on
'conservation' or reduced tillage involved early versions of a chisel plough, by which
plant residues could be retained on the soil surface to alleviate wind and water erosion
(Duley and Fenster, 1954 and Mannering, 1979). Stubble mulch farming was also
developed (Fenster, 1960), and this became a forerunner of no-tillage farming. This
collection of practices led to what became known as conservation tillage, although no-till
systems by definition avoid soil disturbance by no-till seed drilling, and maintain an
organic mulch cover on the soil surface (King and Holcomb, 1985 and Kassam et al.,
2009).
The book, Ploughman's Folly by Edward Faulkner (1943), an extension agronomist in
Ohio, was an important milestone in the development of conservation agricultural
practices. Faulkner questioned the wisdom of inversion ploughing and explained the
destructive nature of soil tillage. He stated: "None has ever advanced a scientific reason
for plowing". Further research in the UK, USA and elsewhere during the late-1940s and

3. 1950s made no-tillage farming possible. The practice began to spread in the USA in the
1960s, and in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay in the 1970s, with farmers such as
Herbert Bartz, Manoel Henrique (Nono) Pereira, Frank Dijkstra and John Landers in
Brazil, Heri Rosso, Rogelio Fogante Victor Trucco and Mario Gilardoni in Argentina,
Carlos Crovetto in Chile and Akinobu Fukami in Paraguay championing the
transformation of tillage farming into no-till farming systems. In Brazil, no-till research
was pioneered in Londrina in 1971 with initiatives from Rolf Derpsch on plots often
visited by Herbert Bartz; in 1972 Rolf Derpsch sent his no-till wheat seeder to Herbert
Bartz's farm "Rhenania" at Rolandia, Parana (30 km from Londrina), to seed a
demonstration plot of half hectare of wheat after soybean.
In the USA in 1973, Shirley Phillips and Harry Young published the book No-tillage
Farming ( Phillips and Young, 1973), the first of its kind in the world. This was followed
in 1984 by the book No-Tillage Agriculture: Principles and Practices by E. R. Phillips
and S. H. Phillips ( Phillips and Phillips, 1984). In Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),
Tom Borland, a weed control specialist, published an article in 1974 in the Rhodesian
Agriculture Today: Which way weed control and tillage ? ( Borland, 1974), after a study
tour to the USA where he met with most of the no-till pioneers including Harry Young.
He also published a series of articles on no-till in The Rhodesian Farmer magazine over
the period from 1976 to 1979, and were later reprinted in South African Farmer's
Weekly (Borland, 1980). This was followed in 1984 by Brian Oldreive in Zimbabwe
designing an approach called Farming God's Way (subsequently called Foundation for
Farming) comprising no-till, mulch cover and rotation ( Oldreive, 2006). In West Africa,
research on no-till farming was started in 1970 at the International Institute for Tropical
Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria, and a series of articles and bulletins on mulch farming
techniques and no-till farming were published in the 1970s and 1980s (e. g., Lal,
1973, Lal, 1974a, Lal, 1974b, Lal, 1975, Lal, 1976a, Lal, 1976b and Lal, 1983).
In addition to these pioneers, there have been many other innovators in no-till farming
since the early seventies who have made tremendous contributions to its growth and
popularity. To mark the 40th Anniversary of the publishing of No-Till Farmer, its editor
Frank Lessiter published a list of "40 Legends of The Past from North America"
(Lessiter, 2011). Elsewhere, other no-till farming champions 4 have included: John
Baker in New Zealand, Terry Wiles, David Sharp, Ivo Mello and Ademir Calegari in
Brazil, Gino Minucci, Mario Nardone, Jose Araya, Roberto Peiretti, Hugo Ghio, Jorge
Romagnoli, Horacio Aguero and Luis Giraudo in Argentina, Bill Crabtree, Steven
Powles and Allen Postlethwaite in Australia, and Wolfgang Sturny in Switzerland.

4. The modern concept of no-till farming—now generally known as Conservation
Agriculture (CA) — involves the simultaneous application of three inter-linked principles
based on locally formulated practices (Friedrich et al., 2009, Kassam et al.,
2009 and Kassam et al., 2011a): (i) permanently minimising or avoiding mechanical soil
disturbance (no-till seeding); (ii) maintaining a continuous soil cover of organic mulch
with plants (crop residue, stubble and green manure/cover crops including legumes);
and (iii) growing diverse plant species in the cropping systems that, in different rainfed
and irrigated farming systems (e. g. arable, horticulture, agro-forestry, crop-livestock,
plantation, mixed systems with root and tuber crops and groundnuts, rice-based
systems), can include annual and perennial crops, trees, shrubs and pastures in
associations, sequences or rotations, all contributing to enhancing soil quality and
system resilience.
CA, in conjunction with good crop, nutrient, weed and water management, is at the
heart of FAO's new sustainable agricultural intensification strategy (FAO, 2011) which
takes an ecosystems approach to enhance productivity and resilience as well as the
flow of ecosystem services while reducing emissions that come from the agriculture
sector (Kassam et al., 2011a). These characteristics are also an integral part of climate-
smart agriculture that seeks to increase productivity in an environmentally and socially
sustainable way, strengthen farmers' resilience to climate change, and reduce GHG
emissions and sequester carbon (World Bank, 2012). At the heart of sustainable
agricultural intensification, or sustainable land management, is the integration of soil
and water conservation practices in agricultural production, with concurrent objectives of
enhanced economic returns and environmental management.
This paper is an elaboration of the achievements in soil and water conservation as
reflected by the uptake and spread of the practice of CA.
2. Spread of Conservation Agriculture
CA involves a systems approach to soil and water conservation upon which a
sustainable intensification strategy can be developed. This is now happening in all
continents and most agro-ecologies. In addition, important 'structural' soil and water
conservation approaches were developed including terracing, contour bunding and
hedges to break slope lengths, wind breaks and hedge rows, water capturing pits,
basins and half-moons, etc. These measures are totally compatible with CA and can be
used in combination with CA production systems as complementary protection
measures. However, this paper focuses largely on CA systems as a way to raise farm

5. output, production factor efficiency (productivity), resilience and the flow of ecosystem
services including soil and water conservation.
Worldwide, CA in arable cropland is now (2011 figures from www.fao.org/ag/ca)
practiced on an estimated 125 million ha (nearly 9%) of arable cropland, mainly in North
and South America, particularly the USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and
in Australia and New Zealand (Table 1) (Friedrich et al., 2013). Also, it is becoming
increasingly popular in China, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia. During the past
decade, it has begun to spread in Asia more generally (including on the Indo-Gangetic
Plains), in Europe (including the UK) and in Africa (Friedrich et al., 2013). CA has
spread over 1 million ha in Africa, including in South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia,
Zimbabwe, Malawi, Madagascar, Kenya, Sudan, Ghana, Tunisia and Morocco.
Approximately, two-thirds of the area is under small-holder production. Much of the
latter adoption has occurred in recent years as a result of more policy and extension
attention and development resources being directed towards the promotion of CA
through participatory dissemination and scaling approaches. Over the past decade the
area of CA has increased at an average rate of 7 million ha per year, but in recent years
it appears to have increased to some 10 million ha per year.
Table 1.
Global area distribution of CA by continent
Continent Area (ha) Percentage of total CA as percentage of arable cropland
South America 55,464,100 45 57.3
North America 39,981,000 32 15.4
Australia & NZ 17,162,000 14 69.0
Russia & Ukraine 5,100,000 4 3.3
Asia 4,723,000 4 0.9
Europe 1,351,900 1 0.5
Africa 1,012,840 1 0.3
World 124,794,840 100 8.8
Table options
The above pattern of adoption and spread of CA tells a country-specific or region-
specific story of why, how and when it all began, what is the current status of adoption
and how it is spreading, and what are the future prospects. In the case of the USA, the

6. initial impetus to reduce soil disturbance and adopt no-till farming arose in response to
the "dust bowls" of the 1930s. In the case of countries such as Brazil, Argentina and
Paraguay, where no-till farming started in the 1970s and 1980s, the main initial driver
was soil degradation due to devastating soil erosion, from intense tropical and sub-
tropical storms, of exposed and loose top soil due to intensive tillage. In Canada and
Australia, the initial drivers were wind and water erosion, but subsequently factors such
as greater productivity and profit, expansion of cropping diversity in sub-tropical and
cool temperate environments, and reduced costs of fertilizer, pesticide, energy and time
became important.
In recent years, interest in CA has spread to Africa, Asia and Europe (FAO, 2007, FAO,
2009 and FAO, 2013; Karabayev, 2008, Basch et al., 2008 and Fileccia, 2008), the
main drivers being stagnating productivity due to soil erosion, loss of soil organic matter
and soil structure, soil compaction, and rising costs of production and potential impacts
of climate change. CA is increasingly being recognised as important for longer-term
sustainability and resilience of food production and agriculture systems, in the face of
increased climatic variability and climate change. In some countries CA is still limited to
the research sector, it is increasingly seen as an appropriate practical concept to
promote in the future to achieve sustainable production intensification and to rehabilitate
degraded agricultural lands and ecosystem services. While CA has its share of critics,
differences in perspectives and appropriateness of CA are not over the efficacy of
locally formulated CA practices but rather more with process of deciding where and how
to promote the adoption and spread of CA.
3. Benefits from Conservation Agriculture
What has become clear is that tillage agriculture at any level of technological
development is not ecologically or economically capable of sustaining current
production levels or/and production intensification. This is because it degrades the soil,
disrupts soil-mediated ecosystem functions and reduces soil productive capacity
(Montgomery, 2007,Huggins and Reganold, 2008, Shaxson et al., 2008, Basch et al.,
2012 and Lal and Stewart, 2013). Tillage agriculture is not capable of fully harnessing
necessary ecosystem services such as clean water, carbon sequestration, water and
nutrient cycling, climate regulation and erosion control. With tillage agriculture there is
destruction of soil structure, porosity, soil life and biodiversity, and there is excessive
respiration, and soil organic matter decomposition, leading to accelerated soil erosion.
Being a net emitter of greenhouse gases, tillage agriculture constantly reduces organic
matter content of the soil which has a direct correlation with soil quality and soil

7. productive capacity (Shaxson et al., 2008 and Corsi et al., 2012). Soil carbon is a major
determinant of the soil's ability to hold and release water and other nutrients that are
essential for plant growth and rooting systems. Soil carbon also plays an important role
in maintaining the biotic habitats that make land management systems sustainable,
resilient, and resistant to degradation. Carbon sequestration, the process by which
atmospheric carbon dioxide is taken up by plants through photosynthesis and stored as
carbon in biomass and soils, can help reverse soil health degradation and soil fertility
loss, and reduce the impact of climate change on agricultural ecosystems (World Bank,
2012 and Lal and Stewart, 2013).
In contrast to tillage agriculture, CA not only offers a way to sequester carbon and
intensify production in an ecologically sustainable way, it is considerably less costly, and
economically, environmentally and socially beneficial. CA utilises the whole ecosystem
and all the natural biodiversity including soil microorganisms and soil meso fauna to
build soil health and productive capacity and protect crops from weeds, insects and
pathogens (FAO, 2011 and Kassam et al., 2013). Given CA's ability to improve rainfall
infiltration and soil moisture storage as well as increase in soil and root volume, there is
improved interactions between plant roots and soil nutrients, and between plant roots
and soil microorganisms such that there is greater resilience to biotic and abiotic
stresses in CA systems compared with tillage systems. In conjunction with effective
erosion control and enhancement of soil carbon, CA is a sustainable land use approach
with soil and water conservation as its core objective (Lal and Stewart, 2013).
CA also allows greater precision and timeliness with farm operations and higher
efficiencies of input use in smallholder farms. This is particularly important in pro-poor
development projects where purchased production inputs are not only scarce but must
be affordable. Higher input factor productivities with low levels of inputs in CA systems
can provide a greater return to investment and a more robust basis for sustainable
production intensification. On larger farms with CA, it becomes possible to overlay
controlled traffic farming and GPS-based precision farming to affect higher efficiencies
of energy and input use. These efficiencies have opened the door for policy and
program initiatives such as the carbon offset credit scheme that has been operating in
Alberta, Canada for several years based on CA, and to which controlled traffic farming
and GPS-based precision farming are being added (Haugen-Kozyra and Goddard,
2009, Baig and Gamache, 2009 and Lindwall and Sonntag, 2010).
Similarly, in Brazil, a programme called "cultivating good water" has been operating in
the Parana 3 basin based on CA on large and small farms in order to improve the
quality and quantity of clean water feeding into the Itaipu Dam, thereby considerably

8. extending its operating life span (ITAIPU, 2011, Mello and van Raij, 2006 and Laurent et
al., 2011). In China, the spread of CA on small farms has helped in reducing the dust in
the atmosphere in Beijing (Li et al., 2007). In Spain, CA-based olive orchards have
reduced soil erosion and flood risks in some 30% of the olive groves (Franco and
Calatrava, 2006,Leyva et al., 2007 and Martinez, 2009). In Western Australia, due to the
adoption of CA in the semi-arid winter rainfall areas, there has been a significant
reduction in land degradation from previous misuse with tillage agriculture (Crabtree,
2010). These changes, although seemingly small, in fact often impact large scale areas
in the agricultural landscape, and are instrumental in delivering fundamental ecosystem
services such as carbon sequestration, watershed services, cleaner air, reduced flood
risks and rehabilitation of degraded lands. Harnessing such services can be promoted
through schemes in which farmers can receive payments for improved environmental
and biodiversity management in agricultural landscapes (Kassam et al., 2013).
When farmers decide to switch to CA from tillage farming, the expected mix of
economic and environmental benefits manifest itself over time. The benefit mix varies in
make-up and time scale depending on several factors including: agro-climatic conditions
and variability within and between seasons; initial status of soil health and drainage
under tillage systems; farm size and source of farm power; cropping system
sophistication; yield levels under tillage systems; farmer expertise and experience of CA
systems; access to production inputs, equipment and machinery; and competition for
crop residues as livestock feed. They vary also to the extent that farm and community
level supports are available, and market opportunities are present to expand production
into more value added cropping systems with expanded crop rotations. Although the
permutations in farm ecological and socio-economic conditions throughout the globe are
very large, a growing pattern of economic and environmental benefits on the agricultural
landscape is evolving, and is being increasingly recognised.
In general, CA benefits can include: increased factor productivities and yields
(depending on prevailing yield levels and extent of soil degradation); up to 70%
decrease in fuel energy or manual labour; up to 50% less fertiliser use; 20% or more
reduction in pesticide and herbicide use; some 30% less water requirement; and
reduced cost outlay on farm machinery. Further, with CA it is possible to enhance
climate change adaptability of cropping systems, farms and landscapes because of
improved soil-plant moisture relations while at the same time achieving greater carbon
sequestration and lower emissions of greenhouse gases particularly CO2, N2O and CH4.
Due to higher rainfall infiltration and reduced runoff and soil erosion, CA also decreases
flood risks, raises water resource quality and quantities, and can reduce infrastructure

9. maintenance costs and water treatment costs (Friedrich et al., 2009 and Kassam et al.,
2009).
Experiences worldwide have shown that similar or higher yields can be obtained with
no-tillage compared with conventional tillage systems (Crabtree, 2010, Derpsch et al.,
2012,Thierfelder et al., 2013 and Kassam et al., 2013). When yield with no-tillage is
lower than with conventional tillage, some of the following reasons may be responsible:
•
Lack of knowledge or experience on how to manage crops with no-tillage
techniques.
•
No-tillage may have been performed with bare soil conditions or with insufficient
soil cover with crop residues.
•
Lack of experience of the machine operator at seeding.
•
Inadequate no-tillage machinery may have been used.
•
Poor weed control.
•
Poor disease and pest control.
•
N fertilization may not have been adjusted during the first few years of applying
no-tillage technology or a leguminous crop may not have been seeded previously
to provide the additional N needed initially to account for immobilization in
surface residues and soil organic matter.
•
No-tillage may have been implemented on an extremely degraded and/or eroded
soil with very low organic matter content, in which micro-and macro biological
activity and fertility limits initial success.

10. •
Comparative research studying conventional and no-tillage systems may have
optimized rotations for conventional tillage, whereas sequences may be sub-
optimal for no-tillage.
In general there is no inherent reason at the production system level why yields under
CA, even during the conversion phase, should be lower than in tillage based farming, if
all the necessary modifications in soil and crop management are applied (except for the
normal learning curve). This is reflected in the observation that whenever the
conversion process is accompanied by experienced farmers (often supported by
experienced researchers), yields usually do not drop but increase; yield drops are
normally seen only in cases of inexperienced new adopters as a result of the above
problems. This can also be true for some inexperienced scientists and academics who
attempt to undertake comparative research on the performance of conventional tillage
systems and CA systems over a number of years without fully understanding what is
involved in being able to establish proper CA conditions. They thus end up with
unreliable results, upon which they draw inaccurate conclusions on the advantages with
CA, or that CA has lower yields than conventional or that CA claims are exaggerated
and not supported by research evidence. This can lead to misinforming decision makers
and even causing confusion in the minds of the uninformed. In order to avoid these
problems it has been suggested to standardize no-tillage research (Derpsch et al.,
2013) to ensure that everybody applies the same principles and has the same
understanding on how to manage a CA system.
4. Some challenges
CA is not a universal solution, but it offers an important alternative approach
incorporating ecologically principles within crop production systems. This results in more
sustainable, resource enhancing and conserving farming systems, offering on-farm
productivity benefits and landscape level ecosystem services. FAO refers to this as a
"Save and Grow" approach to sustainable production intensification with an ecosystem
approach (FAO, 2011). However, like with any farming system, adoption of CA has
constraints. CA is more knowledge and management intensive, and technologies
normally have to be tailored to specific production environments. Establishing CA can
be difficult in the initial years, particularly in some semi-arid areas more clayey soils,
compact soils, and on poorly drained soils. Special innovations are often required in
these conditions. Also, pest and disease control can be problematic in instances where

11. specific residues attract specific pests; often pesticides/herbicides may be required, at
least in the initial years. Leaving crop residues on the field as mulch eliminates an
important source of animal fodder in areas where livestock are important in farm
economies. Other location-specific socio-economic issues may include the perception of
productivity loss in initial years or possible displacement of paid farm labour. On larger
farms in certain countries where CA introduction is new, the lack of appropriate
equipment for seeding and fertiliser placement through surface mulches can be
problematic.
Adoption and spread of CA internationally offers lessons which show that the above-
mentioned challenges can be and are being overcome by farmers, rich and poor, small
and large, through locally-formulated solutions involving a range of public and private
sector stakeholders working together with farmers along different pathways of adoption
and transformation. The negative effects of difficult biophysical conditions can be
reduced and overcome as new, improved, physical and biological soil conditions are
established through CA practices, and diversified crop rotations and associations can
keep crop pest and disease risks low. Integrated weed management is easier where
hand cultivation is practised; and the use of an initial herbicide application followed by
crop rotations and maintenance of a continuous soil cover by plants and mulch can
eventually reduce weed competition.
Below ground crops such as white potato, sweet potato, cassava, groundnut and sugar
beet have also been planted successfully into untilled soil, and harvested with minimal
soil disturbance using appropriate harvesting equipment or cultivation practices (e. g. for
cassava see Howeler et al., 2013). Rice also is produced with no-till systems, without
puddling the soil and without permanent flooding. This approach has been shown to
work in levelled paddies in South America and Asia but also more recently with
permanent raised beds, particularly in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (Jat at al.,
2009; Saharawat et al., 2010 and Kassam et al., 2011b). With System of Rice
Intensification (SRI), which requires moist aerobic soils instead of flooded soils, no-till
rice-based systems on permanent raised beds has been shown to offer considerable
productivity and economic benefits (Sharif, 2011). In CA systems with livestock
husbandry, total biomass production is increased over time so that it is possible to
manage on-farm residue allocation between livestock feed and soil protection
dynamically in order to satisfy both goals (Landers, 2007). Where communal grazing of
crop residues is a constraint in maintaining soil cover, a community-based solution can
be developed to control grazing so that some crop residue is retained. Suitable

12. mechanical equipment is increasingly becoming a minor constraint, as markets develop
for local manufacture and provision of such equipment.
5. Future prospects
In the coming decades, every effort by all stakeholders must be made to transform
tillage agriculture to CA. There are several ways to support immediate and wide spread
scaling up CA (World Bank, 2012; Kassam et al., 2014):
•
Develop and implement enabling government policy and programme initiatives
by encouraging and strengthening government capacity to update agricultural
policies, reform perverse commodity support programmes, and institute policy
reform that supports the up-scaling of CA, especially in Asia, parts of Latin
America and the Caribbean, Africa and Europe—where it is perhaps most
urgently needed.
•
Develop and implement an enabling policy environment for private sector
participation in development and support for promotion of CA.
•
In all new agriculture development projects, include CA as the basis for
sustainable production intensification and engage all relevant stakeholders to
ensure success, including creating an enabling environment for private sector
participation.
•
Advocate for initial government support in terms of incentivesto make appropriate
farm equipment more readily accessible and to reduce any risks of possible
productivity loss during the initial years of switching to CA.
•
Develop large scale programmes that would offer payments to CA farmers for
harnessing ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, watershed
services for increasing the quality and quantity of water resources, control of soil
erosion and reduction in flood risks, and sustaining pollination services.
•

13. Revise universities' agriculture curricula to include teaching the next generation
of farmers and agricultural development practitioners about CA as an alternative
and sustainable way of farming.
•
Provide agricultural universities and schools with relevant literature and
publications about CA in the local language.
•
Fund more innovative practical research totackle soil, agronomic and livestock
husbandry challenges through universities and research centres.
More advantage of the benefits offered by CA can be realized if all stakeholders
become involved in facilitating the transformation process as is happening in countries
such as Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, USA, Canada and Australia. This is also beginning
to occur in Europe (e. g. Finland, Spain), Africa (e. g. Zambia, Zimbabwe) and Asia (e.
g. Kazakhstan, China) (Friedrich et al., 2013, Kassam et al., 2010 and Kassam et al.,
2013). However a more structural response to the opportunities presented by CA calls
for a realignment of agricultural institutions, including research, extension and
education, as well as agriculture development policies to enable CA to become the
preferred agriculture paradigm of choice around which to strengthen national and
international food and agriculture systems (Kassam et al., 2014). The World
Conservation Agriculture Congress process has evolved as a global multi-stakeholder
CA Community of Practice (CA-CoP) that is facilitating the uptake and spread of CA
internationally as a basis for commercialization as well as rural economic and civil
society development. During the past decade, efforts to promote CA have become
increasingly better organized, and donor agencies, governments, national research and
extension systems, private sector firms, NGOs and farmers themselves are engaged in
finding ways and means to introduce and spread CA as a basis for sustainable land
management as well as for the adaptation to climate change.
The future requires that farming and agricultural landscapes be multi-functional,
ecologically sustainable and integrated into the greater ecosystems alongside non-
agricultural land uses. This means that agricultural production enhancement must go
hand in hand with the enhancement and delivery of desired ecosystem services, and
that production systems must be efficient with high production factor productivities, and
resilient in on-farm performance and socio-economic development. Soil erosion by wind
and water needs to be stringently controlled in agricultural production systems, and not

14. viewed as being unavoidable. There are many local, national and international food
production and agricultural challenges which must be addressed, including: food, water
and energy insecurity, climate change, pervasive rural poverty, and degradation of
natural resources.
This journal issue of national and regional assessments clearly shows that the principles
of CA and the locally formulated adaptation practices have the capacity to slow and
reverse productivity losses and environmental damage, thus offering an innovative and
sustainable approach to farming in all agroecologies. While this may sound optimistic, to
all the authors who have contributed their practical expertise to this special issue, CA
based farming systems appear to be the best available option for meeting future food
and agricultural security.
Energy Conservation: The Only Way to
Avoid Economic and Ecological Ruin
1. The conservation of energy is a fundamental concept of physics along with
theconservation of mass and the conservationof momentum. Within some problem
domain, the amount of energy remains constant andenergy is neither created nor
destroyed.
2. By Post Carbon
Posted on Sun, 21 April 2013 00:00 | 1
3. Energy conservation is our best strategy for pre-adapting to an inevitably energy-constrained future.
And it may be our only real option for averting economic, social, and ecological ruin. The world will
face limits to energy production in the decades ahead regardless of the energy pathway chosen by
policy makers. Consider the two extreme options—carbon minimum and carbon maximum.
4. If we rebuild our global energy infrastructure to minimize carbon emissions, with the aim of
combating climate change, this will mean removing incentives and subsidies from oil, coal, and gas
and transferring them to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal. Where fossil fuels
are still used, we will need to capture and bury the carbon dioxide emissions.
5. We might look to nuclear power for a bit of help along the way, but it likely wouldn’t provide much.
The Fukushima catastrophe in Japan in 2011 highlighted a host of unresolved safety issues, including
spent fuel storage and vulnerability to extended grid power outages. Even ignoring those issues,
atomic power is expensive, and supplies of high-grade uranium ore are problematic.

15. 6. The low-carbon path is littered with other obstacles as well. Solar and wind power are plagued by
intermittency, a problem that can be solved only with substantial investment in energy storage or long-
distance transmission. Renewables currently account for only a tiny portion of global energy, so the
low-carbon path requires a high rate of growth in that expensive sector, and therefore high rates of
investment. Governments would have to jump-start the transition with regulations and subsidies—a
tough order in a world where most governments are financially overstretched and investment capital is
scarce.
7. For transport, the low-carbon option is even thornier. Biofuels suffer from problems of high cost and
the diversion of agricultural land, the transition to electric cars will be expensive and take decades,
and electric airliners are not feasible.
8. Carbon capture and storage will also be costly and will likewise take decades to implement on a
meaningful scale. Moreover, the energy costs of building and operating an enormous new
infrastructure of carbon dioxide pumps, pipelines, and compressors will be substantial, meaning we
will be extracting more and more fossil fuels just to produce the same amount of energy useful to
society—a big problem if fossil fuels are getting more expensive anyway. So, in the final analysis, a
low-carbon future is also very likely to be a lower-energy future.
9. What if we forget about the climate? This might seem to be the path of least resistance. After all, fossil
fuels have a history of being cheap and abundant, and we already have the infrastructure to burn them.
If climate mitigation would be expensive and politically contentious, why not just double down on the
high-carbon path we’re already on, in the pursuit of maximized economic growth? Perhaps, with
enough growth, we could afford to overcome whatever problems a changing climate throws in our
path.
10. Not a good option. The quandary we face with a high-carbon energy path can be summed up in the
metaphor of the low-hanging fruit. We have extracted the highest quality, cheapest-to-produce, most
accessible hydrocarbon resources first, and we have left the lower quality, expensive-to-produce, less
accessible resources for later. Well, now it’s later. Enormous amounts of coal, oil, gas, and other fossil
fuels still remain underground, but each new increment will cost significantly more to extract (in
terms of both money and energy) than was the case only a decade ago.
11. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 and the Middle East–North Africa uprisings of 2011,
almost no one still believes that oil will be as cheap and plentiful in the future as it was decades ago.
For coal, the wake-up call is coming from China—which now burns almost half the world’s coal and
is starting to import enormous quantities, driving up coal prices worldwide. Meanwhile, recent studies
suggest that global coal production will max out in the next few years and start to decline.
12. Related article: Energy Efficiency Vital to Cutting Oil Demand
13. New extraction techniques for natural gas (horizontal drilling and “fracking”) have temporarily
increased supplies of this fuel in the United States, but the companies that specialize in this
“unconventional” gas appear to be subsisting on investment capital: Prices are currently too low to

16. enable them to turn much of a profit on production. Costs of production and per-well depletion rates
are high, and energy returns on the energy invested in production are low. Recent low prices resulted
from a glut of production produced by rampant drilling in 2005–2007, which only made economic
sense when gas prices were much higher than they are now. All of this suggests that rosy expectations
for what “fracking” can produce over the long term are overblown.
14. Exotic hydrocarbons like gas hydrates, bitumen (“tar sands”), and kerogen (“oil shale”) will require
extraordinary effort and investment for their development and will entail environmental risks even
higher than those for conventional fossil fuels. That means more expensive energy. Even though the
resource base is large, with current technology the nature of these materials means they can be
produced only at relatively slow rates.
15. But if the hydrocarbon molecules are there and society needs the energy, won’t we just bite the bullet
and come up with whatever levels of investment are required to keep energy flows growing at
whatever rate we need them? Not necessarily. As we move toward lower-quality resources
(conventional or unconventional), we have to use more energy to acquire energy. As net energy yields
decline, both energy and investment capital have to be cannibalized from other sectors of society in
order to keep extraction processes expanding. After a certain point, even if gross energy production is
still climbing, the amount of energy yielded that is actually useful to society starts to decline anyway.
From then on, it will be impossible to increase the amount of economically meaningful energy
produced annually no matter what sacrifices we make. And the signs suggest we’re not far from that
point.
16. In one sense it matters a great deal whether we choose the low-carbon or the high-carbon path: One
way, we lay the groundwork for a sustainable (if modest) energy future; the other, we destabilize
Earth’s climate, shackle ourselves ever more tightly to energy sources that can only become dirtier
and more expensive as time goes on, and condemn myriad other species to extinction.
17. However, in another sense, it doesn’t matter which path we choose: With human population numbers
growing and energy constraints looming, we will have less energy to burn per capita in the future. Plot
any scenario between the low-carbon and high-carbon extremes and that conclusion still holds, which
means less energy for transport, for agriculture, and for heating and cooling homes. Less energy for
making and using electronic gadgets. Less energy for building and maintaining cities.
18. Efficiency can help us obtain greater services for each unit of energy expended. Research has been
proceeding for decades on how to reduce energy inputs for all sorts of processes and activities. Just
one example: The electricity needed for illumination has declined by up to 90 percent due to the
introduction first of compact fluorescent light bulbs, and now LED lights. However, efficiency efforts
are subject to the law of diminishing returns: We can’t make and transport goods with no energy, and
each step toward greater efficiency typically costs more. Achieving 100 percent efficiency would, in
theory, require infinite effort. So while we can increase efficiency and reduce total energy
consumption, we can’t do those things and produce continual economic growth at the same time.

17. 19. Humanity is at a crossroads. Since the Industrial Revolution, cheap and abundant energy has fueled
constant economic growth. The only real discussion among the managerial elite was how to grow the
economy—whether in planned or unplanned ways, whether with sensitivity to the natural world or
without.
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21. Now the discussion must center on how to contract. So far, that discussion is radioactive—no one
wants to touch it. It’s hard to imagine a more suicidal strategy for a politician than to base his or her
election campaign on the promise of economic contraction. Denial runs deep, but sooner or later
reality will expose the delusion that endless growth is possible on a finite planet.
22. Sooner or later we must make conservation the centerpiece of economic and energy policy. The term
“conservation” implies efficiency—building cars and appliances that use less energy while delivering
the same services. But it also means cutting out nonessential uses of energy. Rather than continuing to
increase economic demand by stimulating human wants, we must begin to think about how to meet
basic human needs with minimum consumption of resources, while discouraging extravagance.
23. If we move toward renewable and intermittent energy sources, a larger portion of society’s effort will
have to be spent on processes of energy capture. Energy production will require more land and a
greater proportion of society’s total labor and investment. We will need more food producers, but
fewer managers and salespeople. We will be less mobile, and each of us will own fewer manufactured
products—though of higher quality—which we will reuse and repair as long as possible before
replacing them.
24. The transition to a more durable and resilient but lower-energy economy will go much better if we
plan it. Wherever it is possible for households and communities to pre-adapt, and wherever clever
people are able to show innovative ways of meeting human needs with a minimum of consumption,
there will be advantages to be enjoyed and shared.
25. Much of the current public discussion about our energy future tends to turn on the questions of which
alternative energy sources to pursue and how to scale them up. But it is even more important to
broadly reconsider how we use energy. We must strategize to meet basic human needs while using
much less energy in all forms. Since this will require major societal effort sustained over decades, it is
important to start implementation of conservation strategies well before actual energy shortages
appear.

18. 26. Related article: Using Oil Revenues to Research Alternative Fuels
27. With regard to our food system, it is essential to understand that lower energy inputs will result in the
need for increased labor. Thus the energy transition could represent economic opportunity for millions
of young farmers. Agricultural production must be adapted to substantially reduced applications of
nitrogen fertilizer and chemical pesticides and herbicides since these will grow increasingly expensive
as their fossil fuel feedstocks rise in price. And higher transport energy costs mean that food systems
must be substantially relocalized.
28. Transport systems must be adapted to a regime of generally lowered mobility and increased energy
efficiency. This would most likely require widespread reliance on walking and bicycling, with
remaining motorized transport facilitated by car-share and ride-share programs. Electric vehicles and
rail-based public transport systems should be favored, and new highway construction halted.
29. Reduced overall mobility will require substantial changes in urban design practice and land use
policies. Neighborhoods within cities must become more self-contained, and cities must be
reintegrated with adjacent productive rural areas. Buildings—including tens of millions of homes in
the United States alone—must be retrofitted with insulation to minimize the need for heating and
cooling energy. New buildings must require net zero energy input. Incentives for installing residential
solar hot water systems, and using solar cookers and clotheslines, should be effective and widespread.
30. Most new sources of energy will produce electricity—and in the cases of solar and wind, electricity
will be produced only intermittently. Electricity storage systems (such as pumped water or
compressed air) must be built to overcome at least some of the problems of intermittency.
Reconfiguration of electricity grids, distributed generation, and alignment of household and industrial
energy usage patterns to fit intermittent power availability are other strategies for adaptation.
31. The historically close relationship between increasing energy use and economic growth suggests that
the global economy probably cannot continue to expand as world energy production falters. Therefore,
adaptive measures must include efforts to restructure the economy to meet basic human needs and
support improvements in quality of life while reducing debt and reliance on interest and investment
income. Family planning must be encouraged, as adding more people to a stagnant or shrinking
economy simply means there will be less for everyone.
32. The costs to ecological integrity and to human health of the ever-increasing scale of society’s
production and transport systems have become the subject of broadening concern in recent decades.
Air and water pollution, resource depletion, soil erosion, and biodiversity loss are just some of those
costs. With reduced energy use must come the realization that the scale of our human presence on the
planet must be appropriate to the Earth’s limited budgets of water, energy, and biological productivity.
33. Altogether, this will constitute a historic shift away from continual societal growth and toward
conservation. It will not be undertaken except by necessity, but necessity is inevitably approaching.
Barring some technological miracle, we will have less energy, like it or not. And with less energy, we
will no longer be able to operate a consumer society. The kind of society we will be able to operate

19. will almost certainly be as different from the industrial society of recent decades as that was from the
agrarian society of the nineteenth century.
34. But suppose this analysis is wrong, or that a new miracle technology appears, and energy proves to be
abundant rather than scarce. Even then, conservation makes sense: Increasing energy use leads to
greater consumption of natural resources of all kinds, and the degradation of wild natural systems.
Sooner or later we must rein in consumption—and since signs of ecological decline are already
frighteningly prevalent, sooner is clearly better than later.
35. The shift to a conserver society could hold benefits for people as well as for nature. As we begin to
measure success not by the amount of our consumption, but by the quality of our culture, the beauty of
the built environment, and the health of ecosystems, we could end up being significantly happier than
we are today, even as we leave a far smaller footprint upon our finite planet. But those benefits will be
delayed and diluted for as long as we deny the conservation imperative.
36. By. Richard Heinberg
Nutrient Cycling in an Ecosystem
Recycling is an excellent stewardship activity since it can reduce the depletion of Earth’s
natural resources, as well as the number of landfills needed for storing our waste.
However, in the natural world, recycling is not an optional event. Every living thing is
made up of a variety of elements (e.g., carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen) that are
essential for existence. The total amount of these elements on planet Earth has not
changed over millions of years. For example, the amount of water (hydrogen and
oxygen elements combined) present today is the same amount that existed when
dinosaurs roamed the Earth. If these elements were not recycled, life would cease to
exist since nature would rapidly exhaust its supply of these nutrients.
Like all nutrients, water molecules inside the bodies of dinosaurs, or located elsewhere in
the prehistoric landscape, have moved in a circular pattern over millions of years. Those

20. molecules currently exist somewhere in the Biosphere. Possibly one of these molecules
exists inside you.
The water cycle illustrates how molecules of water move in a circular pattern. They
enter the atmosphere after evaporation from the surface land or water or from
transpiration that moves water through plants into the air. In addition to passing
through plants at times, some water molecules pass through other life forms. Thus, the
water currently in the Biosphere, is the same amount that was present when dinosaurs
roamed the Earth.
Technically, we call the circular movement of elements biogeochemical cycles since
these chemicals, over a period of time, move through the living and nonliving
environment. The term “nutrient cycle” is really a generalized designation for the
different biogeochemical cycles of many elements. It could, for example, be the water
cycle, the oxygen cycle, the carbon cycle, the phosphorus cycle or the nitrogen cycle.
When inorganic elements pass through living organisms, they often become bound up
as complex organic substances (e.g., organic molecules called carbohydrates contain
the inorganic elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen). When organisms die in both
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, their bodies represent a reservoir of inorganic
elements (nutrients). Nature needs to separate the elements from their bound up state
so that they can be recycled. All dead organic matter (dead bodies of all living things,
as well as animal feces and shed body parts like snake skin) is called detritus. Some
elements are removed from detritus by the leaching action of water. However, most
removal occurs from the action of organisms called detritivores (pronounced di try’ ti
vores) and decomposers.
Detritivores digest the organic matter internally after ingesting it. They speed up
decay by shredding the dead matter, and as a result increasing the surface area for
attack by the decomposers - bacteria and fungi (e.g., mushrooms). Both bacteria and
fungi have the capacity to release enzymes that break apart the organic molecules,
thereby releasing the inorganic elements into the environment (e.g., soil or water).
This process is called decomposition. Some of these elements are then taken inside
the bacteria or fungus to provide them with nutrients, as well as energy; those that are
not taken in can be absorbed by plants and are eventually passed to herbivores and
carnivores in the food chain. Nutrient cycling within an ecosystem is not a perfect
process because some nutrients may be lost from the ecosystem due to soil erosion.
Detritivores and decomposers play a vital ecological role in assuring the survival of
producers such as plants, and thus all life, by recycling nutrients back to them.
Furthermore, detritivores and decomposers are nature’s garbage collectors - insuring
that an ecosystem will not suffocate under a mass of dead matter.
Some books erroneously list organisms such as termites and earthworms as
decomposers. They loosely use the term detritivore and decomposer synonymously.
This is a mistake. While detritivores increase the surface area for decomposition, they
are not true decomposers, since they do not convert dead tissue into inorganic
elements.
The rate of decomposition is affected by a variety of abiotic (nonliving) factors. For
example, decomposition is reduced by low temperature, poor aeration of the soil, a lack

21. of moisture and acidic conditions.
A gardener who composts lawn matter and food remains works to overcome these
limitations in order to accelerate decomposition. By creating the proper environment
for detritivores and decomposers, the outcome will be nutrient rich matter that will
stimulate the growth of plant life. Composting is an excellent stewardship activity, in
which students can observe the decomposition process conducted by detritivores and
decomposers.
Water Cycle
Return to Ecology Resources Page
Credits: Water Cycle, Dinosaurs (Dorling Kindersley)
Pilot testing
The Philippine Government promotes agroforestry only within the mandates of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), involving only public lands. It is
because of the misconception of top-level planners and policy makers that agroforestry is an
integrated hilly land technology suitable only for upland areas and designated ecological
zone. While agroforestry is concern with food security and ecological balance as strategies
to address rural poverty and sustainable development, the Departments of Agriculture (DA)
and Agrarian Reform (DAR) which also promote integrated farming systems, have no
comprehensive programs for agroforestry development. Their technicians are not well
versed in agroforestry practices. They are involved only in promoting planting of annuals
and commodity-based crops that have declining yields and no sustainability. Also, lowland
farmers who comprise the large majority of the agriculture industry and successful planters
of forest gardens have not been oriented about agroforestry trends and practices. In fact
the DENR has no regular funding assistance for agroforestry in its devolved district offices,
except for technical assistance to upland farmers. This paper presents a policy development
framework for the integration of agroforestry with mandates of the DA, DAR, and DENR.It
aims to use a two pronged approach: (1) to promote the large-scale adoption of
agroforestry practices among farmers, regardless of land ownership and ecological zones, to
be assisted by these departmentsfor wider impact; (2) to develop a mechanism to stimulate
support from decision makers and planners for comprehensive long-term programs toward
agroforestry development.
Agroforestry is a land-use management system that combines the production of trees with agricultural crops, animals
and/or other resources in the same area. It aims to increase or sustain productivity while maintaining ecological
stability. It also hopes to increase income for improved quality of life.
The Agroforestry Information Network is a computer-based data bank that serves as a repository of
knowledge/information about the commodity. This will serve as an important development tool in
enhancing the dissemination of available information/technologies generated from various R&D
activities. It will also support, interconnect and share information and information facilities among
sectors with common interests.

22. Resilience in Agriculture through Crop Diversification: Adaptive
Management for Environmental Change
Abstract
Recognition that climate change could have negative consequences for agricultural production has
generated a desire to build resilience into agricultural systems. One rational and cost-effective method
may be the implementation of increased agricultural crop diversification. Crop diversification can
improve resilience in a variety of ways: by engendering a greater ability to suppress pest outbreaks and
dampen pathogen transmission, which may worsen under future climate scenarios, as well as by
buffering crop production from the effects of greater climate variability and extreme events. Such
benefits point toward the obvious value of adopting crop diversification to improve resilience, yet
adoption has been slow. Economic incentives encouraging production of a select few crops, the push for
biotechnology strategies, and the belief that monocultures are more productive than diversified systems
have been hindrances in promoting this strategy. However, crop diversification can be implemented in a
variety of forms and at a variety of scales, allowing farmers to choose a strategy that both increases
resilience and provides economic benefits.
The observation that managed ecosystems often fail to respond smoothly to external changes and
pressures has led to greater research on ecological regime shifts, thresholds, and resilience (Folke et al.
2004). Although the idea of building resilience has been studied in a broad range of ecosystems, from
coral reefs to forests (Nyström et al. 2000, Chapin 2004), this idea has not been well studied in an
especially important system to human society: the agroecosystem. The development of resilient
agricultural systems is an essential topic of study because many communities greatly depend on the
provisioning ecosystem services of such systems (food, fodder, fuel) for their livelihoods (Altieri 1999).
Many agriculture-based economies have few other livelihood strategies (Tilman et al. 2002), and small
family farms have little capital to invest in expensive adaptation strategies, which increases the
vulnerability of rural, agricultural communities to a changing environment. The challenge for the
research community is to develop resilient agricultural systems using rational, affordable strategies such
that ecosystem functions and services can be maintained and livelihoods can be protected.
Environmental changes may affect many different aspects of agricultural production. With greater
climate variability, shifting temperature and precipitation patterns, and other global change
components, we expect to see a range of crop and ecosystem responses that will affect integral
agricultural processes. Such effects include changes in nutrient cycling and soil moisture, as well as shifts
in pest occurrences and plant diseases, all of which will greatly influence food production and food
security (Fuhrer 2003, Jones and Thornton 2003). These changes are expected to increase abiotic and
biotic stress, forcing agricultural systems to function under greater levels of perturbation in the future.
Resilience is defined as the propensity of a system to retain its organizational structure and productivity
following a perturbation (Holling 1973). Thus, a resilient agroecosystem will continue to provide a vital
service such as food production if challenged by severe drought or by a large reduction in rainfall. In
agricultural systems, crop biodiversity may provide the link between stress and resilience because a
diversity of organisms is required for ecosystems to function and provide services (Heal 2000). Removing
whole functional groups of species or removing entire trophic levels can cause ecosystems to shift from

23. a desired to less-desired state, affecting their capacity to generate ecosystem services (Folke et al.
2004). This effect highlights the possibility that agricultural systems already may be in a less-desired
state for the continued delivery of ecosystem services.
Vandermeer and colleagues (1998) elucidated the main issues linking the role of diversity in
agroecosystems to functional capacity and resilience. First, biodiversity enhances ecosystem function
because different species or genotypes perform slightly different roles and therefore occupy different
niches. Second, biodiversity is neutral or negative in that there are many more species than there are
functions; thus, redundancy is built into the system. Third, biodiversity enhances ecosystem function
because those components that appear redundant at one point in time may become important when
some environmental change occurs. The key here is that when environmental change occurs, the
redundancies of the system allow for continued ecosystem functioning and provisioning of services.
These three hypotheses are not mutually exclusive and change over time and space; therefore, all
linkages between diversity and function may be useful for the long-term maintenance of sustainable
agricultural systems.
Biodiversity—which allows for the coexistence of multiple species, fulfilling similar functions, but with
different responses to human landscape modification—enhances the resilience of ecosystems (Walker
1995). This concept is linked to the insurance hypothesis (Yachi and Loreau 1999), which proposes that
biodiversity provides an insurance, or a buffer, against environmental fluctuations because different
species respond differently to change, leading to more predictable aggregate community or ecosystem
properties. Such diversity insures the maintenance of a system's functional capacity against potential
human management failure that may result from an incomplete understanding of the effects of
environmental change (Elmqvist et al. 2003).
The recognition that biodiversity is integral to the maintenance of ecosystem functioning points to the
utility of crop diversification as an important resilience strategy for agroecosystems. There can be
enormous diversity within agricultural systems, and diversification can occur in many forms (genetic
variety, species, structural) and over different scales (within crop, within field, landscape level), giving
farmers a wide variety of options and combinations for the implementation of this strategy.
Diversification at the within-crop scale may refer to changes in crop structural diversity; for example,
using a mixture of crop varieties that have different plant heights. Diversification at the within-field scale
may be represented by areas between and around fields where trap crops or natural enemy habitat can
be planted. At the landscape scale, diversification may be achieved by integrating multiple production
systems, such as mixing agroforestry management with cropping, livestock, and fallow to create a highly
diverse piece of agricultural land (table 1; Altieri 1999, Gurr et al. 2003). It is important to recognize that
diversity can be created temporally as well as spatially, adding even greater functional diversity and
resilience to systems with sensitivity to temporal fluctuations in climate.
Because of the impacts that climate change may have on agricultural production, the need to consider
diversified agricultural systems is ever more pressing. The following sections review the current knowledge
about agricultural diversity and its ability to protect agriculture from the consequences of climate change, as
well as the barriers that remain for its adoption as a climate change adaptation strategy. In the first section, I
discuss the advantages of diversified agroecosystems under a future climate by looking at pest, disease, and
plant physiological effects. The second section discusses the barriers to the adoption of diversified agriculture
as an adaptation strategy, and the third section examines methods to help farmers optimize diversification
strategies to improve resilience and protect agricultural production.

24. The Agroforestry Information Network is a computer-based data bank that serves as a repository of
knowledge/information about the commodity. This will serve as an important development tool in enhancing the
dissemination of available information/technologies generated from various R&D activities. It will also support,
interconnect and share information and information facilities among sectors with common interests. The Agroforestry
Information Network is a computer-based data bank that serves as a repository of knowledge/information about the
commodity. This will serve as an important development tool in enhancing the dissemination of available
information/technologies generated from various R&D activities. It will also support, interconnect and share
information and information facilities among sectors with common intere