Brazil

EPAGRI (Empresa de Pesquisa Agropecuária e de Extensão Rural de Santa Catarina S.A.); IAPAR (Instituto Agronomico do Paraná; Associacão de plantio directo no Cerrado); Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul; EMBRAPA (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária).

Unsustainable land management practices causing erosion led to initiatives to improve land management in the late 1970s that focused on the adoption of reduced tillage techniques. A number of groups ranging from international agencies to local authorities and farmers’ organizations initiated the process. The initial problem focused on was soil erosion.

During the development of the programme a number of other problems related to land use planning and infrastructure were addressed. Reduced tillage techniques to combat erosion were, on a collaborative basis, further developed as conservation oriented farming systems. The result was the start of micro-catchment, area-based and community-driven watershed management.

Elements of the approach are crop diversification, alternative uses of land, collaboration between farmers, private sector and official institutions, and economic attractiveness of the new method. Equally important are elements such as identification of needs, knowing options for improvement and getting clear signals from scientific and policy-making sources.

In 1992 the adoption of this system in Brazil started to grow exponentially, expanding the area now managed under the new approach to approximately 8 million hectares. Furthermore, the concept has over the last 10 years, spread throughout Latin America with the help of the Latin American Network of Conservation Agriculture. The case has been proposed to Wageningen University as a teaching case. A number of scientific studies exist regarding different aspects of its impact (including water, natural resources, society, and the atmosphere).

Conservation farming; Watershed management; Community involvement.

It was found that crop diversification is a natural consequence of conservation farming. Furthermore, with higher and more sustainable production the pressure on land resources is reduced thus allowing alternative uses such as forest or pasture. Better water infiltration and reduced erosion improves the quantitative and qualitative water availability in a catchment area from which non-agricultural water users also benefit.

The most outstanding results are:

• Sustainable agricultural production;

• Improved soil fertility and yield;

• Decrease of production risk due to adverse climatic conditions;

• Long term increase of water availability (ground and surface water) and better water quality (less pollution);

• Reduced environmental impact of agriculture;

• Improved environmental awareness of farmers;

• Long term decrease of the use of external inputs; and

• Improved rural livelihoods through short and long term decrease of costs.

The most important lessons are:

• Importance of farmer-based research and extension,

• Importance of early involvement and participation of the private commercial sector (input suppliers and manufacturers), and

• Necessity of clear scientific and policy support.

Application of the approach in other places can be affected by social factors (such as community organisation), unclear messages from the research community and policy makers, and the lack of commercially available technologies. Furthermore, strong economic incentives for mono cropping against crop rotations could complicate the management of the system.

Mr. Theodor Friedrich and Mr. José Benites,
FAO-AGSE/AGLS,
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla,
1-00100 Rome, Italy.
Tel. (+39) 06 5705-5694/4825; Fax. (+39) 06 5705-6798/3152,
Email: Theodor.Friedrich@fao.org; Email: Jose.Benites@fao.org