Less can be More: developing conservation cropping systems

Conservation agriculture is spreading rapidly in West Asia – adoption has grown from near zero to more than 27,000 hectares in four years.

Conservation cropping – which combines minimal soil disturbance, early planting, stubble retention, and crop rotations – reduces production costs, improves soil structure and water retention, and reduces soil erosion. Zero-tillage, the key to conservation cropping, is widely used in many countries, but not in West Asia – until recently.

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) has been developing conservation cropping systems in West Asia with a range of partners, including universities, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Australia, Iraq, and Syria, and agricultural equipment manufacturers in Iraq and Syria.

Long-term trials in Iraq and Syria have demonstrated the yield and income benefits of conservation cropping for a variety of crops. In northern Syria, zero-tillage with early planting gave significantly higher yields than conventional tillage and late planting. For example, in 2009/10, barley yields increased by 12%, from 3.35 tons to 3.74 tons per hectare. The same year, net returns to wheat cropping increased by US$250 per hectare – even without counting the benefits of improved soil structure, erosion control, and water conservation.

The trials in Syria also showed that most currently available varieties are suitable for conservation cropping. But ICARDA is also scaling up a specialized breeding program to develop new varieties even better adapted to zero-tillage conditions.

One drawback to zero-tillage is that it requires specialized planters that can place seeds accurately into unplowed soil, but the models that are currently available are imported and too expensive for most smallholder farmers. An Australia-ICARDA project worked with Iraqi and Syrian entrepreneurs to manufacture – locally and at low cost – planters suited to local conditions. These gave the same results as imported planters, at a fraction of the cost: US$1,500–5,000 for the locally manufactured planters compared with US$50,000–60,000 for the imported equipment.

In 2006/07, three farmers in Syria planted only 15 hectares of crops using zero-tillage. In the 2010/11 season, 400 farmers planted 20,000 hectares. In Iraq, adoption has grown from 52 hectares to nearly 8,000 hectares in the same period. To encourage adoption, NGOs and government extension services provided zero-tillage seeders on loan, but every farmer provided inputs from his own resources – which clearly indicates that they find the technology attractive and profitable.

For more information read the “Annual Progress Report: Development of conservation cropping systems in the drylands of northern Iraq“.  This post is part of our series celebrating “40 years of CGIAR”.  Photo credit: Majed Khatib/ICARDA