8 th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture held in Switzerland
During the days 21st 25th June, the 8th World Congress on Conservation Agriculture will be held in Bern, Switzerland, as a virtual event because of the pandemic. Such high importance is being given to CA globally and for Common Agricultural Policies in Europe that the Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation, European Commissioners as well as Members of the Swiss Government will be speakers in the opening session.
Conservation Agriculture (CA) is an innovative alternate paradigm of regenerative, ecological and
sustainable agriculture that is replacing the degrading conventional tillage based agriculture worldwide.
CA has spread globally over more than 205 M ha of annual cropland across all continents and land-based agroecologies. Global CA area has been increasing at an annual rate of more than 10 M ha since 2008/09, an area equal to the size of Portugal, and smallholder and larger-scale farmers worldwide are successfully carrying out ecologically effective conservation practices to achieve this remarkable agricultural transformation.
CA systems are present in all continents and across a wide range of agroecologies in temperate, sub tropical and tropical regions. Adoption of CA is occurring in all land-based systems in rainfed and irrigated agriculture, involving annual and perennial cropping systems, including orchards and plantation systems, agroforestry systems, crop-livestock systems, rice-based systems and organic systems.
Conservation Agriculture offers a wide range of productivity, economic, environmental and social benefits to the farmer and society. These benefits include improved yields and yield stability and profit, optimized and reduced use and cost of production inputs including agrochemicals, fuel, time and capital, control of soil erosion and land degradation, enhancement of biodiversity, climate change adaptability and mitigation, and improved public goods and environmental services including clean water, improved watershed hydrology, reduced erosion and pollution, reduced water use, flood protection, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, reduced energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, and pollination services.
Click on this link to get the full programme and the welcome address and opening remarks by Dongyu QU, FAO Director General, and the Welcome addresses by the European Comission and the Swiss Governmen.
