Conservation agriculture: Concepts, brief history, and impacts on agricultural systems

Conservation agriculture (CA) is characterized by minimal soil disturbance, diversified crop rotations, and surface crop residue retention to reduce soil and environmental degradation while sustaining crop production. CA involves changing many conventional farming practices as well as the mindset of farmers to overcome the conventional use of tillage operations. Although adoption of CA is increasing globally, in some regions it is either slow or nonexistent. The adoption of CA has both agricultural and environmental benefits but there is a lack of information on the effects and interactions of key CA components which affect yield and hinder its adoption. In this chapter, we discuss the basic concepts and brief history of CA, and its impacts on agricultural systems.