Prospect for conservation agriculture in Northern and Eastern European countries, lessons of Kassa

SYNOPSIS. In Europe, Conservation agriculture (CA) is less adopted than in the other world adopting regions and, reduced tillage is more used than no-tillage. Use of cover crop is not common. It is currently less researched than it was before the 1990s. One of the main features of CA is the reduction of the production costs which acts as a powerful driving force for the dissemination of CA technologies. In Europe, conversion from conventional agriculture to CA leads to a minor change in yields: ± 10% depending on the countries; and, this is not decisive for farmers as far as CA meets their main expectation: i.e. reduction in costs of fuel, machinery and labour saving. The adoption process responds to a step-by-step strategy and, large sized farms are the main adopters. The increase in competitiveness at the global and at European level brings the general trend of the increase of CA coverage world-wide and the current level of fuel costs together with the trend of the enlargement of the farm size in Europe will probably contribute to the adoption of CA in Europe. The process is likely already ongoing in some European countries; it has to be sustained.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Lahmar, Rabah, De Tourdonnet, Stéphane, Barz, P., Düring, R.A., Friedinghaus, M., Kolli, R., Kubat, J., Medvedev, P.V., Netland, J., Picard, Didier
Format:	conference_item biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	Bibliotheca Fragmenta Agronimica
Subjects:	F08 - Systèmes et modes de culture, A01 - Agriculture - Considérations générales, E10 - Économie et politique agricoles,
Online Access:	http://agritrop.cirad.fr/555957/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/555957/1/document_555957.pdf
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