Advances in Conservation Agriculture Volume 1

"What Dr Samuel Johnson did for English, Professor Amir Kassam has done for Conservation Agriculture (CA). He is eminently well qualified and has enlisted more than a hundred battle-hardened champions to contribute 26 chapters amounting to over a thousand scholarly pages. The content is formidable. Volume one, Systems and Science, embraces: the need for CA; global developments; soil health and landscape management; the roles of minimum soil disturbance, mulch and cover crops; crops and cropping systems, vegetable systems, perennial systems; integration of cropping and livestock; mechanization; certification; institutional and policy support. Volume two, Practice and Benefits, includes management of crops and cropping systems, soil, weeds, insect pests and disease, nutrients, carbon, and biodiversity; climate change mitigation and adaptation; benefits to farmers and society; ecosystem services; and rehabilitation of degraded farmland…This book can change the future."review by David Dent in International Journal of Environmental StudiesThis volume summarises research on key components for successful Conservation Agriculture (CA). Chapters review the latest research on ways of optimising no-till techniques to minimise soil disturbance in relation to seeding, weeding and other operations. Chapters also review ways to improve soil health in CA, including mulch cover, cover crops, rotations and intercropping. The book also includes case studies on optimising CA in particular systems, including rice, root, tuber and horticultural crops as well as integrating livestock in CA systems. The book concludes by looking at certification schemes and institutional support to promote good CA practice.

"What Dr Samuel Johnson did for English, Professor Amir Kassam has done for Conservation Agriculture (CA). He is eminently well qualified and has enlisted more than a hundred battle-hardened champions to contribute 26 chapters amounting to over a thousand scholarly pages. The content is formidable. Volume one, Systems and Science, embraces: the need for CA; global developments; soil health and landscape management; the roles of minimum soil disturbance, mulch and cover crops; crops and cropping systems, vegetable systems, perennial systems; integration of cropping and livestock; mechanization; certification; institutional and policy support. Volume two, Practice and Benefits, includes management of crops and cropping systems, soil, weeds, insect pests and disease, nutrients, carbon, and biodiversity; climate change mitigation and adaptation; benefits to farmers and society; ecosystem services; and rehabilitation of degraded farmland…This book can change the future."review by David Dent in International Journal of Environmental Studies, "Overall, these two volumes provide an exciting collation of the science and practice of CA and its increase across the world. They are hugely valuable resources to stimulate further work for adoption of CA systems using emergent multivariate analysis - possible with digital technologies - of farming systems previously regarded as too complex to analyse. Complex mixed cropping and mixed farming systems, adopted because of their resilience by many farmers, can now be trialled. These books offer an inspiration for CA practitioners, for students of agricultural subjects, for entrepreneurs and all who are concerned for sustainable agricultural management towards ecosystem security."Prof. John Wibberley, University of Reading, UK; review in International Journal of Agricultural Management., "Dr Kassam and more than 120 contributing authors from more than 30 countries have brought together authoritative, clearly structured and accessible information on all aspects of Conservation Agriculture (CA) for a large range of readers…Every now and again, there comes a book on sustainable agriculture offered by the real champions including farmers, and this book is one of those. Dr. Kassam and all the contributors to the book as well as the publisher Burleigh Dodds deserve to be congratulated for their timely and much needed effort in bringing together the best of scientific and empirical knowledge and experience of CA systems and their benefits from around the world for practical application to help make sustainable agriculture real". Robert Brinkman, former Director of Land and Water Division – FAO; review in International Journal of Environmental Studies

Professor Amir Kassam is Visiting Professor at the University of Reading (UK) and Moderator of the FAO-hosted Global Platform for Conservation Agriculture Community of Practice (Global CA-CoP). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK) and has received an OBE from the British Government for services to tropical agriculture and to rural development. Prof. Kassam is Chair of the International Conservation Agriculture Advisory Panel for Africa (ICAAP-Africa), Member of the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF) and Vice-Chair of the Conservation Agriculture Association for the UK (CA-UK). He is former Chair of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK), the FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance Europe Foundation and the Tropical Agriculture Association (TAA). He has held senior positions at international organisations such as the FAO and CGIAR and has worked with many national and international programmes on sustainable agricultural development. He has published widely on Conservation Agriculture. Professor Amir Kassam is Visiting Professor at the University of Reading (UK) and Moderator of the FAO-hosted Global Platform for Conservation Agriculture Community of Practice (Global CA-CoP). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK) and has received an OBE from the British Government for services to tropical agriculture and to rural development. Prof. Kassam is Chair of the International Conservation Agriculture Advisory Panel for Africa (ICAAP-Africa), Member of the European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF) and Vice-Chair of the Conservation Agriculture Association for the UK (CA-UK). He is former Chair of the Aga Khan Foundation (UK), the FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance Europe Foundation and the Tropical Agriculture Association (TAA). He has held senior positions at international organisations such as the FAO and CGIAR and has worked with many national and international programmes on sustainable agricultural development. He has published widely on Conservation Agriculture. Dr Don Reicosky is an Emeritus Soil Scientist, formerly at the North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory, Morris, Minnesota, USA, a leading laboratory for soil and plant research at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Dr Reicosky has published widely on carbon management and soil quality as related to soil health, understanding and optimising soil management through conservation agriculture for more sustainable production.