Advances in Conservation Agriculture Volume 1: Systems and Science
About this ebook
This volume summarises research on key components for successful Conservation Agriculture (CA).
Chapters review the latest research on ways of optimising no-till techniques to minimise soil disturbance in relation to seeding, weeding and other operations. Chapters also review ways to improve soil health in CA, including mulch cover, cover crops, rotations and intercropping.
The book also includes case studies on optimising CA in particular systems, including rice, root, tuber and horticultural crops as well as integrating livestock in CA systems. The book concludes by looking at certification schemes and institutional support to promote good CA practice.
About the author
Professor Amir Kassam is Visiting Professor at the University of Reading (UK) and Moderator of the FAO-hosted Global Platform for Conservation Agriculture Community of Practice (Global CA-CoP). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK) and has received an OBE from the British Government for services to tropical agriculture and to rural development. Prof. Kassam is Chair of the International Conservation Agriculture Advisory Panel for Africa (ICAAP-Africa), Member of the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF) and Vice-Chair of the Conservation Agriculture Association for the UK (CA-UK). He is former Chair of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK), the FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance Europe Foundation and the Tropical Agriculture Association (TAA). He has held senior positions at international organisations such as the FAO and CGIAR and has worked with many national and international programmes on sustainable agricultural development. He has published widely on Conservation Agriculture.
Dr Don Reicosky is an Emeritus Soil Scientist, formerly at the North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory, Morris, Minnesota, USA, a leading laboratory for soil and plant research at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Dr Reicosky has published widely on carbon management and soil quality as related to soil health, understanding and optimising soil management through conservation agriculture for more sustainable production.
Marco Zanella is currently a technical agent for higher education at the Agricultural Research and Rural Extension Company of Santa Catarina. He has worked as a rural extensionist since 2007. He has experience in the area of Agronomy, working on sustainable rural development and plant and soil management techniques.
Dr Saidi Mkomwa is Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the African Conservation Tillage Network with over 30 years‘ experience of developing and promoting Conservation Agriculture techniques in Africa. Amongst other responsibilities he is Chair of the Conservation Agriculture Regional Working Group for Southern Africa. He is based in Kenya.
Dr Sjoerd W. Duiker is Professor of Soil Management and Applied Soil Physics at Penn State University, USA. He has made significant contributions to both research and extension in developing more sustainable soil management practices in such areas as no-till systems, the use of cover crops, mulches and more diverse crop rotations. He is a member of the Governing Board of the Northeast Cover Crops Council which brings together universities, farmers, government agencies and others to optimise cover crop use in the north-eastern states of the USA. Professor Duiker is also a co-editor of the forthcoming Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing collection Weed management in Conservation Agriculture systems.
Dr Gottlieb Basch is a Full Professor in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Évora, Portugal. He is President of the European Conservation Agriculture Federation and has contributed to a number of EIP AGRI Focus Groups, EU Horizon and other research projects on more sustainable methods of crop cultivation.
