Conventional or Conservation Farming? What to choose under the current conditions?

Agriculture plays a vital role in providing food for a growing world population, but there is a key issue that stands above the agricultural sector: conventional or conservation agriculture? Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages, and the choice between them becomes decisive in today's conditions.

The choice between conventional and conservation agriculture depends on several factors and can vary depending on objectives, resources and values.

What are the benefits of conservation agriculture?

To learn some of the advantages of conservation agriculture, we turned to Mr. Paolo Barchetta. He has over 40 years of career in agribusiness, he came to Romania in 2004 to dedicate himself to organic farming.

First of all, the main task is to improve biodiversity through its natural biological processes on and below the soil surface; currently land exploitation is increasing, environmental resources are increasingly polluted, production costs are constantly increasing, the volatility of markets is accentuated; as a result, we must rethink the way to do agriculture, taking more care of the environment environment.

Five key benefits of conservation agriculture/ NO-TILL and/or STRIP-TILL/ that would help the way to conduct farming with a future in mind:

1 Conservation of water resources

With more minimal tillage, the water contained in it does not evaporate by such a percentage as in conventional agriculture.

2 Reducing the greenhouse effect

The loss of water content (H2O) means that when tilling the soil we will have a greater loss of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is released into the air through the oxidation of organic matter;

3 Reducing losses of macro nutrients from groundwater

This reduction is produced by the washing out of essential nutrients such as NPK, the reason being the lack of plant and microbial activity in the treated soil

4 Increasing biodiversity with cover crops

The advantage is to give life to the soil, the increase in biodiversity means captured energy, the life of the soil must not stop with the harvest, but must continue by improving the process of physical, chemical and biological improvement of the soil with plants that regenerate the soil.

5 The economic balance between exploitation and reintegration improves

In favor of reintegration, much richer productions are obtained and natural resources are not lost, we must or even we are obliged to respect the concept of compensating the resources taken from the soil together with the production obtained

All this seems like just fairy tales, but the results can be seen immediately and over time will be expressed in -50/ 60% of energy consumption, -30/ 35% consumption of fertilizers and pesticides, +35% water gain, reduction of hours of work

STRIP-TILL and the solution to this processing

The main feature of STRIP-TILL is soil conservation. By limiting tillage to narrow strips, erosion is reduced and the soil structure is kept more stable. The STRIPCAT II machine, which was designed specifically for strip-till processing, offers advantages in terms of soil conservation, increased yields and agricultural resource efficiency.

NO-TILL and the solution to this processing

NO-TILL is a modern agricultural practice that focuses on reducing or eliminating tillage during the agricultural production cycle.

The BOSS concept from the French manufacturer AGRISEM significantly reduces the burying of plant residues in the sowing row. The most important feature of this direct seeder is the double angle of attack disc, which eliminates the need for pressing force and furrow compaction.

This ensures a quality sowing, a well-closed furrow, favoring the germination and development of the root system.

Follow us for more information on topics and solutions related to conservation agriculture.