Conservation Agriculture as a System to Enhance Ecosystem Services

Agriculture

Anandkumar Naorem¹  Somasundaram Jayaraman²  Ram C. Dalal³  Kathryn L. Page³  Yash P. Dang³ 

[1] ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Regional Research Station, Bhuj 370105, Gujarat, India;ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil Science, Nabibagh, Bhopal 462038, Madhya Pradesh, India;School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane 4072, Australia;

关键词: conservation agriculture;    no-till farming;    ecosystem services;    climate change;    soil health;    biodiversity;   

DOI  :  10.3390/agriculture11080718

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Conservation agriculture (CA) is considered a sustainable practice with the potential to maintain or increase crop productivity and improve environmental quality and ecosystem services. It typically improves soil quality and water conservation; however, its effect on crop productivity is highly variable and dependent on local conditions/management. Crop residue retention plays a crucial role in CA and can help to improve overall soil health and ultimately crop productivity and sustainability. However, weed control, herbicide resistance, and weed shift under residue retained fields is a major challenge. Moreover, CA can increase water infiltration and reduce soil loss and runoff. This reduces the surface transport of nitrate and phosphorus from agricultural fields and the eutrophication of water bodies, although leaching of nitrate to groundwater can potentially increase. In addition, CA has been proposed as one of the components in climate-smart agriculture, owing to its reduced period to seed/plant next crop, reduced soil disturbance and low consumption of fossil fuels. Therefore, compared to the conventional intensive tillage, CA has a greater potential for soil C sequestration, favors higher soil biodiversity, lowers greenhouse gas emission, and can assist in mitigating climate change. However, not all experiments report a positive impact. The understanding and decoding the site-specific complexities of CA system is important and requires a multidisciplinary approach.

【 授权许可】

Unknown