Policy Insight 01/2021: Conservation Agriculture and COVID-19

IFSD has just launched a new event study on the topic of conservation agriculture and how it can aid in the COVID-19 recovery process in the Indo-Gangetic Plains. The authors argue that conservation agriculture benefits to makers, communities and ecosystems are proven, but more demonstration work is needed to pursue the policy makers and supporters. Also, judicious mechanisation should be considered an essential part of building resilience as well as boosting production, the authors claim.

The report highlights key solutions to enhance conservation agriculture, such as:

• Researching and developing of scale appropriate machines for seeding, and rice transplanting.
• Supporting farmers for the uptake of mechanization.
• Developing community-wide ownership and sharing of various machines for the groups of small farmers who cannot own the machine on individual basis.
• Developing effective and appropriate herbicides – possibly organic herbicides, and supporting research.
• More demonstration of the benefits of CA in various famers’ fields.

To read the report, please click here.