FAO.org

Conservation Agriculture is actually applied on about 10% of the world’s cropland and adoption is growing fast. However, it is not growing fast enough to face the challenges ahead, such as the need to eradicate hunger and food insecurity for a growing population and to address the threats of climate change, land and environmental degradation, resource scarcity and increasing cost of food, production inputs and energy. For “sustainable intensification” strategy as being implemented through Conservation Agriculture to spread faster, it needs not only the accurate application of the concept and principles, but also supportive policies that can facilitate adoption of Conservation Agriculture and reward the adopters for example with payments for environmental services.

This publication provides guidance on such supportive policies, as well as on protocols which would be needed to support schemes of payments for environmental services. It is based on actual field experiences of FAO and GIZ in the promotion of Conservation Agriculture in different world regions and is directed specifically to decision makers in governments for designing and implementing agricultural policies and regulations for sustainable development.