It is generally understood and well documented that conventional farming practices with frequent ploughing gradually degrade the physical structure of tropical soils (Brady and Weil, 2007) leading to increased soil erosion and decreased chemical …
Conservation agriculture (CA) is currently promoted in sub-humid and semi-arid areas of sub-Saharan Africa as a means to increase crop water use efficiency and stabilize yields. In this study, conducted during three consecutive seasons in a semi-arid …
Agricultural intensification, or increasing yield, has been a persistent theme in policy interventions in African smallholder agriculture. This article focuses on two hegemonic policy models of such intensification; (1) the ‘Alvord model’ of …
Global demand for agricultural products is expected to double in the next decades, putting tremendous pressure on agriculture to produce more. The bulk of this increase will come from developing countries, which host most biodiversity-rich areas of …
We review agricultural impacts on biodiversity and the potential of conservation agriculture in developing productive and environment-friendly cropping systems. We then analyse experiences from two African landscapes of global importance for …
This case study presents the status of conservation agriculture in Zambia. It is one in a series of eight case studies about conservation agriculture in Africa, which were developed within the framework of a collaboration between CIRAD (French …