A presentation made at the WCCA 2011 event in Brisbane, Australia.

1. 5th World Congress of Conservation Agriculture, 25-29 September, Brisbane
Mainstreaming Conservation Agriculture:
Challenges to Adoption, Institutions and Policy
Amir Kassam, Theodor Friedrich, Jules Pretty, Francis Shaxson,
Herbert Bartz, Ivo Mello
University of Reading, UK
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome
University of Essex, UK
Tropical Agriculture Association, UK
Brazilian No-Till Association, Ponta Grossa, Brazil

2. Outline
• Background – mainstreaming
• Challenges
–adoption
–institutions
–policy
• Opportunities
• What is needed
• Conclusions

3. Mainstreaming CA
For CA to be a preferred paradigm of choice by
concerned stakeholders – by farmers of all types
(adoption), by service providers (institutions –
private, public, community), and by policy
makers & politicians (policy ).

4. Mainstreaming CA
So that CA mind set and innovation system take
roots to serve as a sustainable ecological
foundation for the multi-functional food and
agriculture land use system and into which
other complementary on-farm and landscape
level production and ecosystem management
practices can be/are integrated (e.g. GAP,
precision & energy efficient farming; controlled
traffic farming, integrated land use
management etc)

5. Mainstreaming CA
Not an exclusive vision & purpose – as most
existing production systems, sub-systems and
practices can benefit from integration of CA
principles e.g. IPM, IPNM/ISFM, irrigated systems,
agroforestry, SRI rice, organic farming, rotational
farming, integrated crop-livestock system.

6. Mainstreaming CA
Not saying that CA is the only agro-ecological
approach to sustainable production
intensification.
Others are free to promote non-CA paradigms
and practices if they think they can harness
ecologically sustainable production
intensification and ecosystem services
simultaneously.

7. Mainstreaming CA
So mainstreaming at two interlinked levels:
• At the level of on-farm adoption – where
productivity, output and sustainability are of
major concern (THIS PRESENTATION)
• At the integrated landscape level – where
environmental ecosystem services are also of
major concern to rural communities and
society generally (A different set of additional
barriers involved here)

8. Challenges to Adoption
(within a given effective
demand and market access)

9. Challenges to Adoption
• TA to CA – A fundamental operational change
– Issues of knowledge base, personal experience,
risks, all would influence the state of the mind &
psychology of the would be adopter towards CA
• Discussed for 70 years, practiced for 40 years
• “Real”: more than 120 Mill ha
• Yet: it is relatively unknown and not promoted
as a mainstream production system choice
• Typical adoption curve, slow start

10. Challenges to Adoption
• Necessary conditions for adoption, to be
mobilised at the individual, group,
institutional and policy level to create the
sufficient conditions for uptake and
continuation
• But farmers do not start from a clean sheet –
more than 90% of them practice tillage-based
systems which have ‘worked’ for them so far,
and they aspire to intensify within the same
paradigm

11. Challenges to Adoption
• And are forced to stay with the old
‘interventionist’ tillage paradigm by the
private and public parts of the food and
agriculture system – the market capitalism
version of harnessing production
intensification and its socio-economic
assumptions – strong on input and output
market liberalization and access and value
chains but weak or almost ‘unconcerned’
about on-farm and landscape agro-ecology or
ecosystem functions and management

12. Challenges to Adoption
Intellectual challenges to adoption (1):
• CA is counterintuitive
• CA against “common knowledge”
• Tillage and plough part of culture &
existing system
• “Experiential knowledge” of CA:
– More knowledge – positive view
– Little knowledge – negative bias (majority)

13. Challenges to Adoption
Intellectual challenges to adoption (2):
• CA is unknown, no option for farmers
• CA pioneers need technical guidance
– knowledge intensive, forward-planning
• CA no package ready for adoption
– local adaptation, farmer R&D
• CA publications often poor quality

14. Challenges to Adoption
Social challenges to adoption:
• Social isolation/peer pressure
• Land tenure, communal rights on
land/residues
• Adoption depends on entire
communities – social capital

15. Challenges to Adoption
Biophysical and technical challenges to
adoption:
• CA practices not for every situation readily
available
• Crop rotations/cover crops/livestock
integration need local solutions
• Unavailability of inputs:
cover crop seeds, equipment

16. Challenges to Institutions

17. Challenges to Institutions
Financial challenges to adoption:
profit vs. investment capital
• Investment for building up soil health
(initial “repairs”)
• Investment into new equipment
• Unavailability of services – credit,
machinery contractors, low cost
adaptations

18. Challenges to Institutions
Infrastructural challenges to adoption:
• Inputs required for sustainable intensive
production: available, affordable,
accessible
• Different inputs for CA (cover crop
seeds, herbicides, equipment)
• Suppliers need to be proactive

19. Challenges to Policy
Policy challenges to adoption:
• Policy makers unaware of CA
• Policies working against CA (commodity
subsidies, tillage laws)
• Lack of inter-sectoral coordination
(agriculture-mechanization-finance …)
• Landownership/-user rights

20. But there are opportunities to
promote CA
• Increasing pressures on land use in
general and farmers in particular are
opportunities for change.
• Crisis and emergencies
• Increasing environmental concerns
• Challenges of climate change

21. What is needed?
• Reliable local individuals and institutional
champions
• Dynamic institutional capacity to support CA
• Engaging with farmers & farmers with
farmers (social capital development)
(a) The importance of working with farmers
towards improvements in current practices.
(b) Importance of farmers’ organizations
including FFS, Cooperatives, Clubs, Networks

22. What is needed?
Providing knowledge, education and learning
services
(a) The need for scientists and extension agents
to recognise and characterise the problems
relating to soil health in agricultural land and
facilitate problem solving
(b) The need to build up a nucleus of
knowledge and learning system in the farming,
education, extension and scientist community

23. What is needed?
Mobilizing input supply and output
marketing sectors for CA
(a) Accessibility and affordability of
required inputs and equipment
(b) Financing and enabling the initial
stages

24. What is needed?
Designing and implementing policy and
institutional support
– Putting a political emphasis on policy and
institutional support for mainstreaming CA
– The need to sensitise policy-makers and
institutional leaders
– Formulating enabling policies including for
rapid up-scaling

25. Conclusions
• CA adoption rarely spontaneous
• Hurdles keep farmers from adoption
• All hurdles have solutions
• Benefits from CA can be harnessed with
supportive policies and institutional
service providers in response of actual
local, national and global problems
• This has begun to occur in Africa and
Asia in recent years

26. Let’s share our capacities in the global
CA-CoP to advance CA
Thank you
More information:
Theodor.Friedrich@fao.org
kassamamir@aol.com
http://www.fao.org/ag/ca