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.

Technical guidelines - Lesotho is a small mountainous country characterized by extensive land degradation and erratic climatic conditions. In recent years a growing number of development agencies have been promoting conservation agriculture (CA) as a means to enhance rural livelihoods through sustainable production intensification. The present case study prepared under the AGP Framework for Sustainable Crop Production Intensification draws on the data collected by FAO in 2006 and illustrates the impact of CA and  more specifically the local version of CA, the likoti-system, on sustainable crop intensification in the south-eastern highlands of Qacha’s Nek district and in the western lowlands of Butha-Buthe and Berea. According to these data, the adoption of likoti has brought about...

Technical guidelines - This is a story about how FAO assisted groups of farmers in five farming communities in the moist savanna zone of South Western Burkina Faso to enhance their crop-livestock systems through Conservation Agriculture (CA) practices, including crop diversification, using an innovative farmer discovery process, to bring about agricultural intensification and improvement in livelihoods. FAO’s assistance was delivered largely by working with national institutions, adding value to ongoing stakeholder resources and activities. It is a story of positive intensification outcomes brought about by adapting ‘proven principles and practices’ of CA and crop diversification into existing crop-livestock systems. FAO worked with a range of stakeholders including the farmers and their communities, and the research and...

Reports - This publication is a report of a Workshop that brought together people from a wide range of institutions - farmers, researchers, extensionists, policy makers, donors – from 40 countries who share a common concern about the non-sustainability of ways in which farm land is now being used and who are convinced that this must change. The Workshop, which was hosted by FAO and the UK Tropical Agriculture Association (TAA), focused on the growing evidence of success in the adoption and spread of CA systems in developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa, and on ways of mainstreaming CA principles...

Technical guidelines - The present publication on Visual Soil Assessment is a practical guide to carry out a quantitative soil analysis with reproduceable results using only very simple tools. Besides soil parameters, also crop parameters for assessing soil conditions are presented for some selected crops. The Visual Soil Assessment manuals consist on a series of separate booklets for specific crop groups, collected in a binder. The publication addresses scientists as well as field technitians and even farmers who want to analyse their soil condition and observe changes over time.