Conservation Tillage in Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainable agriculture implies profitable farming on a continuous basis while preserving the natural resource base. It is the most economic-cum-efficient harnessing of solar energy in the form of agricultural products without degrading soil productivity or environmental quality. In this context, sustainable agriculture is not synonymous with “low-input,” “organic,” or “alternative” agriculture. If the concept of sustainable agriculture is to be widely accepted, it must have a double-edged strategy. The energy flux must be substantially increased to get the shifting cultivator out of subsistence farming, but energy use efficiency must be increased to render intensive modern agriculture more profitable. Tillage and seedbed preparation are a major contribution to energy influx in a crop production system. Crop response to tillage systems is hard to predict. The choice of the most appropriate type of conservation tillage depends on many important soil factors: texture, structure, erodibility, slope gradient, slope aspect and shape, effective rooting depth, plant-available water and nutrient reserves, and internal drainage.