Conservation Agriculture in the 21 st Century: A Paradigm of Sustainable Agriculture *

* The views expressed in this paper are those of the co-authors and not of FAO Summary The global research and development community in general as well as most of the farmers worldwide are at a crossroad, and must decide on the question: which way forward with agriculture in the 21 st century? The empirical evidence provided by the farming communities as presented in this paper tells us that farmer-led transformation of agricultural production systems based on Conservation Agriculture (CA) is already occurring and gathering momentum globally as a new paradigm for the 21 st century.