Technical guidelines - This is a book which examines in great detail the design and implementation of a rural development project for smallholder farmers in Paraguay. Over a period of seven years, from 2003 to 2010, the project applied the basic concepts of conservation agriculture, forestry and agroforestry benefiting 17 thousand farm families in the Eastern Province of the country. The practices promoted closely paralleled those being recommended for sustainable crop production intensification by FAO which seek to enhance agricultural productivity whilst protecting the natural environment and improving ecosystem services.The conservation agriculture practices focus on hand and animal powered systems of direct planting, permanent soil cover and crop associations, successions and rotations. Agroforestry...

Technical guidelines - Soil organic matter plays a crucial role in maintaining soil health and its productivity potential. However, most of the world’s agricultural soils have become depleted in organic matter compared with their state under natural vegetation. This isbecause the dominant form of agriculture is based on tillage, which accelerates the decomposition of soil organic matter.Tillage-based production systems should therefore be transformed so that the future production intensification can be achieved sustainably. Conservation Agriculture, a system avoiding or minimizing soil disturbance, combined with soil cover and crop diversification, is considered to be such sustainable production system. However, there appears to be certain degree of uncertainty about the role of Conservation Agriculture in...

Technical guidelines - ture global food security relies not only on high production and access to food but also on the need to address the destructive effects of current agricultural production systems on ecosystem services (Foresight, 2011) and increase the resilience of production systems to the effects of climate change. CA enables the sustainable intensification of agriculture by conserving and enhancing the quality of the soil, leading to higher yields and the protection of the local environment and ecosystem services. The present publication describes the experiences of introducing Conservation Agriculture as a concept for sustainable crop production intensification in farming communities of Karatu District, Tanzania. The case study explains the adoption processnad shows the...

Technical guidelines - Future food security relies not only on higher production and access to food but also on the need to address the destructive effects of current agricultural production systems on ecosystem services and increase the resilience of production systems to the effects of climate change. CA addresses the problem of low and erratic rainfall through the use of practices that reduce water losses and increase infiltration, and low soil nutrient status by increasing soil carbon and nitrogen through the use of organic soil cover and legumes in rotations and interactions. CA enables the sustainable intensification of agriculture by conserving and enhancing the quality of the soil, leading to higher yields and...

Technical guidelines - The objective of this publication is to offer a reference material for extensionists, professors, agronomy students, technicians in general, and for farmers themselves. Through information that is up-to-date and richly illustrated, it strives to facilitate the adoption and diffusion of No-Tillage, the use of green manures, and the practice of crop rotation on small farms. The publication describes the principal species of green manures and, at the same time, informs in detail how to insert green manures into small farm production systems according to soil fertility and major crops. It also deals with the residual effect of green manures on main crops and analyzes the economic implications of these practices.