L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à Madagascar

Conservation agriculture (CA) represents farming systems obeying three principles : minimal mechanical soil disturbance, permanent organic cover, and diversified crops. On the basis of its effects on soil ecology, carbon sequestration, work productivity and massive adoption in some agricultures over...

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Main Author: Georges Serpantié
Format: Article
Language:fra
Published: Éditions en environnement VertigO 2009-12-01
Series:VertigO
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/vertigo/9290
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author Georges Serpantié
author_facet Georges Serpantié
author_sort Georges Serpantié
collection DOAJ
description Conservation agriculture (CA) represents farming systems obeying three principles : minimal mechanical soil disturbance, permanent organic cover, and diversified crops. On the basis of its effects on soil ecology, carbon sequestration, work productivity and massive adoption in some agricultures over the world, it was presented by its promoters as the only sustainable and appropriate system for all the contexts, and consequently universally diffused in the name of the sustainable development. By field surveys and documentation analysis, our research focused on the history of CA extension on worldwide scale. We emphasized the very specific origin of CA and disparity of its adoption between regions and types of exploitations. Then the possible causes of the apparent resistance of African and Malagasy agricultures were analysed : constraints related to the semi-aridity and the agro-pastoral civilisations, rival solutions, still unsuited technical sequences, and importance of the time et diversity factors in the innovation process. In spite of this multiple causality, the postulate of universality of CA brings back the question of the adoption to the only political and financial management of diffusion. It is however necessary to prove its transferability towards any context, and its ecological sustainability. We recommend the pursuance of the effort of improvement by analyzing the context of the farming systems and basing the research on the practices, the local knowledge and the innovation capacity of farmers and communities, and to follow other tracks in parallel.
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spelling doaj-art-2c4b87bd195a4718b48ff63f3873484d2025-01-09T12:35:03ZfraÉditions en environnement VertigOVertigO1492-84422009-12-0193L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à MadagascarGeorges SerpantiéConservation agriculture (CA) represents farming systems obeying three principles : minimal mechanical soil disturbance, permanent organic cover, and diversified crops. On the basis of its effects on soil ecology, carbon sequestration, work productivity and massive adoption in some agricultures over the world, it was presented by its promoters as the only sustainable and appropriate system for all the contexts, and consequently universally diffused in the name of the sustainable development. By field surveys and documentation analysis, our research focused on the history of CA extension on worldwide scale. We emphasized the very specific origin of CA and disparity of its adoption between regions and types of exploitations. Then the possible causes of the apparent resistance of African and Malagasy agricultures were analysed : constraints related to the semi-aridity and the agro-pastoral civilisations, rival solutions, still unsuited technical sequences, and importance of the time et diversity factors in the innovation process. In spite of this multiple causality, the postulate of universality of CA brings back the question of the adoption to the only political and financial management of diffusion. It is however necessary to prove its transferability towards any context, and its ecological sustainability. We recommend the pursuance of the effort of improvement by analyzing the context of the farming systems and basing the research on the practices, the local knowledge and the innovation capacity of farmers and communities, and to follow other tracks in parallel.https://journals.openedition.org/vertigo/9290participationMadagascarAfricalocal practicesno tillageconservation agriculture
spellingShingle Georges Serpantié
L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à Madagascar
VertigO
participation
Madagascar
Africa
local practices
no tillage
conservation agriculture
title L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à Madagascar
title_full L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à Madagascar
title_fullStr L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à Madagascar
title_full_unstemmed L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à Madagascar
title_short L’agriculture de conservation à la croisée des chemins en Afrique et à Madagascar
title_sort l agriculture de conservation a la croisee des chemins en afrique et a madagascar
topic participation
Madagascar
Africa
local practices
no tillage
conservation agriculture
url https://journals.openedition.org/vertigo/9290
work_keys_str_mv AT georgesserpantie lagriculturedeconservationalacroiseedescheminsenafriqueetamadagascar