Conservative agriculture practice: A road to sustainability for Asian countries

Abstract

Climate change and the rising world population are pushing for an increase in the food production system to feed the world population. The resilience of global agriculture requires a change in the existing agriculture production systems that can increase yield and reduce the climate impact. Conservative agriculture is proposed as the solution to meet the growing food demand in a climate-friendly manner. About 75% of the world’s population lives in rural areas in poverty, and on average, 20% of the global population is food insecure. By 2050, the world may reach 2.4 billion, and agriculture production must increase by 60% to meet the increasing food demand. The Agriculture Green Revolution (1960-1980) brought a rise in the harvest of wheat, rice, maize and production through yield intensification practices based on hybrid seed, tillage, use of technology, fertilizers and inorganic pesticides. The green revolution empowers the farming communities worldwide and promotes the farmers’ income, farm yield and efforts in farming. The green agriculture revolution lost its competitiveness due to its increasing economic, social and environmental costs since 1990. Agriculture remains the prime contributor to global warming and emitter of greenhouse gases, and climate change is already negatively impacting wheat and maize productivity. Increasing agriculture productivity resilience in the face of climate change and increasing world population is necessary. Adopting conservative agriculture practices can mitigate climate challenges and enhance agricultural produce. Farmers remain unaware and hesitant to change their farming practices to deal with climate change, a decline in farm organic matter, soil erosion and farm yield.