Climate change adaptability and mitigation with Conservation Agriculture

Abstract The contribution of the agricultural sector to climate change is gaining visibility, leading to increasing interest in learning how agriculture can mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Conventional agriculture based on soil tillage has driven numerous well-known environmental problems. It is a net GHG emitter and vulnerable to climate change. Conversely, Conservation Agriculture (CA) helps mitigate and adapt to climate change. CA reduces GHG concentration in the atmosphere in two ways. First, the changes introduced by CA increase the carbon in the soil, reducing its emissions. Second, the drastic reduction or avoidance of mechanical soil disturbance, along with no mechanical alteration of the soil, leads to reduction of the CO2 emissions due to energy saving and lower fuel consumption along with the reduction of the mineralization processes of organic matter. CA is a good strategy not only to mitigate climate change, but also to adapt agricultural ecosystems to its effects, by increasing crop resilience in the face of climatic variation. With CA systems, soil erosion is also reduced, and the quality and fertility of the soil is improved, allowing the crop to access more water in dry periods. CA can reverse agriculture’s field performance from that of a net GHG emitter to a GHG mitigator. It provides an alternative paradigm to the status quo of agriculture based on soil tillage, which is unacceptable from a climate point of view.