As with SRI, Conservation Agriculture (CA) is an agroecological method of raising cropyields through enhancing and protecting soil and plant health. These two methodologies

work well together, and can enhance each other’s efficacy.

Conservation Agriculture and theSystem of Rice Intensification (SRI)

How CA works Bare soils, monocropping and conventional tillage practices degrade soils by causing erosion, plow pans, disruption to soil biota, loss of soil organic matter and mining of nutrients favored by the monocropped plant. CA addresses this by focusing on agricultural practices that make soil health the basis for crop production.

What‘s next? FAO (www.fao.org/ag/ca) and SRI-Rice (www.sririce.org) are collaborating to promote the integration of CA and SRI, a new concept. This includes the new development of specific mechanized equipment -- including transplanters and direct-seeders -- to facilitate the spread of CA/SRI geographically, focusing primarily on small-holder farmers, and second on medium and larger scale farmers.

CA has threecore principles

1. Minimize or eliminate soil disturbance

2. Maintain soil organic cover at all times

3. Crop diversification through rotations, associations, and sequences

Mechanization challenges andopportunities

Conventional irrigated rice soil cultivation relays on soil puddling, where soil structure is intentionally destroyed – this contradicts the CA principles. On the other hand, SRI and CA can integrate, as SRI focuses on creating organic matter-enriched and aerated soil – even for irrigated rice. Successful examples for SRI/CA integration are based on permanent raised beds, soils covered by mulch, and including the rotation with another crop. Machines need to be able to transplant single seedlings in precise spacing either into mulched surface or on clean soils (as seen in the photos above). As the combination of SRI and CA is a new concept, there is currently a lack of good machine proto-types being developed and made available for farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

CA and SRIworkingtogether

CA can offer to maximize the beneficial effects of SRI while minimizing soil disturbance and improving soil health. A few examples of CA and SRI include:

No-till SRI ricefollowed by no-till vegetables on raised beds and furrows in Sofia, Madagascar.

(Source: AmirKassam)

No-till, mecha-nized CA riceproduction in North Korea.

(Source: AmirKassam)

Precision, mecha-nized SRI using dry soil transplanting and permanent beds in thePunjab Regionof Pakistan.

(Source: Asif Sharif)

The SRIInternationalNetwork and

Resources Center atCornell University

The Foodand AgricultureOrganizationof theUnited Nations

Raised bed with rice stubble after harvest

Raised bedwith rice straw being returned as mulch

Vegetable production

after SRI rice harvest with

rice strawmulch

Rice being transplanted into un-tilled paddy SRI rice nursery

Hand transplantingvia ride-ontractor attachment

Close-up of handtransplanting attachment

Rice close-up

Wheat beingdirectly drilled intoun-tilled rice stubble

Ricegrowingthrough

mulchcover

Contact: Amir Kassam (FAO), amir.kassam@fao.org; Josef Kienzle (FAO), josef.kienzle@fao.org;Erika Styger (SRI-Rice, Cornell University), eds8@cornell.edu;

www.fao.org/agriculture/crops/thematic-sitemap/theme/spi/en - www.sririce.org

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