Conservation Agriculture: Significance, Challenges and Opportunities in Nepal

Abstract

The conservation agriculture (CA) is an alternative agricultural production system that minimizes the soil disturbances and conserves the composition and natural biodiversity. The CA consists of three core principles which are maintenance of permanent or semi-permanent soil cover; minimum soil disturbance through tillage; and regular crop rotations. The factors namely precision land leveling, no-till systems, furrow irrigated raised bed planting systems, easy accessibility of machines/equipments, crop residue management practice and crop diversification in Terai and plain areas enhance the suitability of CA in those areas but in the hills the presence of sloppy terraces makes cultivation difficult, scope of crop residue incorporation is limited since it is used for livestock feed, no or limited roads to transport the heavy machines/equipments, poor affordability of the farmers for machines and rainfed agriculture that may limit the promotion of CA based technologies. In Nepal the adoptions of CA technologies are in the primary stage and for their expansion, they require concerted efforts of all the stakeholders in the partnership and participatory approaches. Labor scarcity, increasing production costs and declining or static productivity are the major challenges of agriculture in Nepal. CA promotes reverse degradation processes, improves resource quality, reduces production costs and helps achieve sustained high productivity. Therefore CA based crop management practices across the various agro-ecologies need to be identified and promoted in Nepal.