Lets start with: "Again he has a simple message. “More fertile soils, containing more organic matter, can hold more water, and keep it through a drought,” he says. “Moist soils are also cooler, which means less risks from heat waves.” No-till does this, he is quick to point out"
And yet, adoption is extremely low, even in countries that have spent 25+ years and 100's of millions of dollars (and that's just the amount I could count using google to search), like Zambia. Why? Because it is not simple.
Especially with "conservation agriculture" (minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, crop rotation), which has become something of a theology, more research needs to be done to characterize under which conditions it makes economic sense to adopt (and continue adoption). Drought-prone is one factor that does indeed increase adoption of no-till, but one still confronts constraints especially to the rest of the package, e.g. high opportunity costs of leaving crop residues on field (as opposed to use as fodder, fuel, etc) and/or high costs of other mulches to permanently cover the soil, and higher weeding labor, at least in the initial years.
The concern about commercially-oriented farmers is a bit flabbergasting in this context. It is precisely commercially-oriented farmers, reliant on fuel-based mechanization, who find it economically advantageous to engage in no-till, especially when combined with, say, Round-Up Ready (GMO) soya+Round UP. No-till means much lower fuel costs; ability to finance GMO seeds and herbicides helps with the weed problem.
Nothing is simple. But I also agree that the "no blueprints, no magic bullets, no panaceas; everything is different everywhere at every point in time" mantra is equally unhelpful. As is usually the case, reality is likely somewhere in the middle between totally idiosyncratic down to the square inch vs. completely homogeneous. Various soil improvement techniques are likely to work under various conditions. In the case of conservation agriculture, outside of economic studies undertaken in regions dependent on fuel-based mechanized farming system, there is precious little rigorous evidence of the constraints that smallholder farmers not dependent on fuels face in adopting no-till or the entire "conservation agriculture" package. And as far as I can tell, promoters spending 10's of millions of dollars each year in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, are absolutely unconcerned about determining why adoption rates are so low after decades of promotion. That's a big problem.
Lets start with: "Again he has a simple message. “More fertile soils, containing more organic matter, can hold more water, and keep it through a drought,” he says. “Moist soils are also cooler, which means less risks from heat waves.” No-till does this, he is quick to point out"
And yet, adoption is extremely low, even in countries that have spent 25+ years and 100's of millions of dollars (and that's just the amount I could count using google to search), like Zambia. Why? Because it is not simple.
Especially with "conservation agriculture" (minimum soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, crop rotation), which has become something of a theology, more research needs to be done to characterize under which conditions it makes economic sense to adopt (and continue adoption). Drought-prone is one factor that does indeed increase adoption of no-till, but one still confronts constraints especially to the rest of the package, e.g. high opportunity costs of leaving crop residues on field (as opposed to use as fodder, fuel, etc) and/or high costs of other mulches to permanently cover the soil, and higher weeding labor, at least in the initial years.
The concern about commercially-oriented farmers is a bit flabbergasting in this context. It is precisely commercially-oriented farmers, reliant on fuel-based mechanization, who find it economically advantageous to engage in no-till, especially when combined with, say, Round-Up Ready (GMO) soya+Round UP. No-till means much lower fuel costs; ability to finance GMO seeds and herbicides helps with the weed problem.
Nothing is simple. But I also agree that the "no blueprints, no magic bullets, no panaceas; everything is different everywhere at every point in time" mantra is equally unhelpful. As is usually the case, reality is likely somewhere in the middle between totally idiosyncratic down to the square inch vs. completely homogeneous. Various soil improvement techniques are likely to work under various conditions. In the case of conservation agriculture, outside of economic studies undertaken in regions dependent on fuel-based mechanized farming system, there is precious little rigorous evidence of the constraints that smallholder farmers not dependent on fuels face in adopting no-till or the entire "conservation agriculture" package. And as far as I can tell, promoters spending 10's of millions of dollars each year in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, are absolutely unconcerned about determining why adoption rates are so low after decades of promotion. That's a big problem.