Highlight of the “EJA paper of the month”

Il s'agit de l'article : PRACT (Prototyping Rotation and Association with Cover crop and no Till) – a tool for designing conservation agriculture systems. K. Naudin, O. Husson, E. Scopel, S. Auzouxa, S. Ginera, K.E. Giller. European Journal of Agronomy, volume 69, September 2015, Pages 21-31.

Conservation farming is seen as one of the ways in which agricultural systems can be made more sustainable, resilient and less dependent on fossil-fuel based inputs. So far, conservation farming has mainly been practised in the USA, Australia and somewhat in Europe – but its penetration into Africa has been small. The authors of this study have developed a heuristic modelling tool that selects suitable cropping systems in a case study in Madagascar for a range of environments, ranging from hillsides of varying fertility and soil compaction to paddy crops and cover crops. The criteria for the selection of cropping combinations are multiple and include erosion control, N fixation, nutrient cycling, weed control and others. In providing an evidence-based filtering mechanism, tools such as PRACT can help farmers to decide on their cropping preferences for conservation farming by using such a farmer decision support tool, in combination with other tools.