Conservation agriculture: Systems thinking for sustainable farming

Mitchell, Jeffrey P.; Harben, Ron; Sposito, Garrison; Shrestha, Anil; Munk, D. S.; Miyao, Gene; Southard, Randy; Ferris, H.; Horwáth, William R.; Kueneman, E. A.; Fisher, Judee; Bottens, Monte; Hogan, Phil; Roy, Robert; Komar, Jim; Beck, Dwayne; Reicosky, D. C.; Leinfelder-Miles, Michelle; Aegerter, B. J.; Six, Johan; Barcellos, Tom; Giacomazzi, Dino; Sano, A. Hans-Otto; Sanchez, Jesse; Crowell, Mike; Diener, J.; Cordova, Darrell; Cordova, Trevor; Rossiter, Jerry

doi:10.3733/ca.v070n02p53

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…8 The benefits of CA include, but not limited to, soil erosion alleviation, efficient use of inputs, labor supply, and fossil fuels, [9][10][11] flexibility in dry farming systems under climate change, 12 reduction of production costs, 13 alleviation of greenhouse gases emission, [14][15][16][17][18][19] improvement of crop diversity, 16 improvement of resource efficiency and environmental conditions, 20 reduction of plowing costs, 18 the use of fossil fuels, and soil water evaporation. 21 Moreover, although CA has been promoted in many different countries, governments and farmers are faced with challenges for its development. Some of these challenges may be related to CA technical, social, and environmental issues and each have various aspects depending of countries where CA is implemented.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Applying Conservation Agriculture in Iran: An Overview on Experts and Farmers’ Perspectives

Ataei

Sadighi

Aenis

et al. 2021

Air, Soil and Water Research

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Different countries face diverse challenges for Conservation Agriculture (CA) development. The main purpose of this study was to examine the challenges of applying CA in Iran from the perspective of experts and farmers. A focus group method was used to investigate the challenges. The research sample consisting of farmers and experts of CA in different provinces includes those 19 experts and 15 farmers. Inductive content analysis and coding (open, axial, and selective coding) were employed to analyze the farmers’ and experts’ discussions. The findings showed that the challenges of applying CA in the studied provinces could be divided into 6 general categories: institutional-infrastructure (7 concepts), economic (5 concepts), training-research (2 concepts), environmental (4 concepts), mechanization (2 concepts), and cognitive (2 concepts) challenges. The economic and institutional-infrastructure challenges were the most frequent related to applying CA. It can be concluded that to solve the challenges of applying CA, it is necessary to link various sectors of government (the Ministry of Agriculture), education and research (Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization), and industry together. But farmers themselves are also a major contributor to meet the challenges of CA development through participation in planning CA project and training-extension programs. Therefore, farmers’ communities should also pave the way for a transition from conventional agriculture to CA with their participation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges of Applying Conservation Agriculture in Iran: An Overview on Experts and Farmers’ Perspectives

Ataei

Sadighi

Aenis

et al. 2021

Air, Soil and Water Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Minimum tillage systems, ridge-tillage, no-tillage and other systems were designed to address the issues of wind-driven soil erosion and degradation, and carbon efflux [16,17]. These systems, depending on how they are employed and the conditions under which they are used, can produce vastly different results [18]. Some of the systems are widely used over large areas of land in certain locations [3,11,19] enabling reduced soil erosion and associated loss in water and air quality.…”

Section: Introduction: the Historical Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation agriculture systems.

Mitchell¹,

Reicosky²,

Kueneman³

et al. 2019

CABI Reviews

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Despite positive trajectories in global production during the last century, projected food demand and limits on our ability to further expand cropland now dictate an increase in food production by roughly 70% during the first half of the twenty-first century. Conventional systems of agriculture with their general emphasis on intensive soil disturbance, limited biodiversity, monoculture cropping and practices that mine the resource base are extractive and have resulted in slow yet demonstrably severe environmental degradation that ultimately jeopardizes food security for future generations. Because future gains in production are unlikely to be achieved by further increases in genetic yield potential, as have been achieved in the past, applications of new production system paradigms are going to be indispensable. Our existing ones are no longer able to compensate for, nor reverse, the environmental problems they have caused. We summarize the history of how agricultural systems have come to be what they are today and identify ways in which these systems will need to be improved to meet future food security challenges. We describe the development of food production system options that have been proposed in recent decades and show that the core principles and concepts of what are widely regarded as conservation agriculture (CA) systems provide an important unifying framework. Our chapter provides evidence for why these systems, when flexibly applied and in ways that mimic natural ecosystems, provide a best-bet approach for moving forward. We highlight a series of examples of CA systems being applied around the world and conclude by issuing a call to action aimed at developing and more widely adopting food production systems that look long-term, mimic natural systems and transcend jargon.

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“…It has been proven through the literature and practice that systems thinking can help deal with the increasing complexity of businesses in particular [27,28] and the world in general [6,29]. There is a growing emphasis on systems thinking in almost all fields, including education [30][31][32], engineering [33,34], military [35,36], agriculture [37][38][39], weather [40,41], and public health [42][43][44].…”

Section: Systems Thinking: Overview and Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Assessment of Individuals’ Systems Thinking Skills via Immersive Virtual Reality Complex System Scenarios

Dayarathna

Karam

Jaradat

et al. 2021

Systems

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This study utilized the application of authentic Virtual Reality (VR) to replicate the real-world complex system scenarios of a large retail supply chain. The proposed VR scenarios were developed based on an established systems thinking instrument that consists of seven dimensions: level of complexity, independence, interaction, change, uncertainty, systems’ worldview, and flexibility. However, in this study, we only developed the VR scenarios for the first dimension, level of complexity, to assess an individual’s Systems Thinking Skills (STS) when he or she engages in a turbulent virtual environment. The main objective of this study was to compare a student’s STS when using traditional ST instruments versus VR scenarios for the complexity dimension. The secondary aim was to investigate the efficacy of VR scenarios utilizing three measurements: Simulation Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ), System Usability Scale (SUS), and Presence Questionnaire (PQ). In addition to the three measures, NASA TLX assessment was also performed to assess the perceived workload with regards to performing the tasks in VR scenarios. The results show students’ preferences in the VR scenarios are not significantly different from their responses obtained using the traditional systems skills instrument. The efficacy measures confirmed that the developed VR scenarios are user friendly and lie in an acceptable region for users. Finally, the overall NASA TLX score suggests that users require 36% perceived work effort to perform the activities in VR scenarios.

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Conservation agriculture: Systems thinking for sustainable farming

Cited by 16 publications

References 8 publications

Challenges of Applying Conservation Agriculture in Iran: An Overview on Experts and Farmers’ Perspectives

Challenges of Applying Conservation Agriculture in Iran: An Overview on Experts and Farmers’ Perspectives

Conservation agriculture systems.

An Assessment of Individuals’ Systems Thinking Skills via Immersive Virtual Reality Complex System Scenarios

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