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Paraguay: Financial and Economic Implications of No-tillage and Crop Rotations Compared to Conventional Cropping Systems

Occasional Paper N. 9 - July 1997








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    No-Tillage Farming for Sustainable Land Management: Lessons from the 2000 Brazil Study Tour
    Occasional Paper No. 12 - October 2001
    2001
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    In November 2000, the World Bank (WB) and the Brazilian Federation for Direct Planting into Crop Residue (FEBRAPDP) organized the third Study Tour on “Producer-Led Rural Organizations for Sustainable Land Management” (PRO-SLM), with particular emphasis on notillage systems (NT).1 The Study Tour followed a 10-day itinerary of over 1,000 km through Southern Brazil, covering Paraná and Santa Catarina States, two states which received WB support through land and micro-watershed management projects.< /p> This Paper presents the salient features of NT development in Southern Brazil and discusses the lessons learned with special reference to the scope for adapting and developing such production systems to Africa, in line with the Better Land Husbandry approach advocated through the Soil Fertility Initiative (SFI) in several African countries.In the context of this Paper, the term No-Tillage (NT) is used to describe the farming system studied in Brazil. NT has been an integral part of the ( micro)watershed management approach developed in the Southern Brazilian states of Paraná and Santa Catarina. NT was developed in response to continuously declining land productivity under “conventional” systems based on soil tillage. The underlying land management principles that led to the development of NT systems were to protect the soil surface from sealing by rainfall, to achieve and maintain an open internal soil structure, and to develop the means for safe disposal of any surface runoff t hat would nevertheless still occur. Consequently, the NT technical strategy was based on three essential farm practices, namely: (i) not tilling the soil; (ii) maintaining soil cover at all times; and (iii) using suitable crop rotations. All three practices must be followed if improved results are to be obtained in a sustainable fashion.
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    Assessing the Adoptability of Improved Crop Production Technologies by Small Farmers: the Case of Lesotho
    Occasional Paper N. 6 - September 1996
    1996
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    In Lesotho, some externally financed agricultural development projects have appeared particularly prone to failure. One reason may be that, when designed, projects have not been subjected to sufficiently rigorous analysis, particularly with regard to expected farmers' response to extension messages. The thesis of this paper is that the impact of high inter-annual fluctuations in crop yields (and of crop prices) on farmers' expectations plays an important role in producers' decision-making, and t hat this can be measured with sufficient approximation to assess the prospects for the successful introduction of "improved" cropping technologies in small farmers' communities. Stochastic Efficiency Analysis has been applied to the mountain areas of Lesotho, where natural conditions are particularly harsh, but it has wider applicability in project formulation. The paper is based on information gathered by an FAO Investment Centre mission, which visited the Districts of Thaba T'seka and Qacha's Nek in November 1995 on behalf of the Government of Lesotho and the International Fund for Agricultural Development to identify a Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Programme for possible IFAD financing. See also the related FAO Investment Centre Occasional Paper N. 7 "Note on the Machobane system".
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    Financial Analysis of Banking Institutions
    Occasional Paper N. 1 - June 1995
    1995
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    This paper is intended to guide non-bankers, especially economists working on Investment Centre missions, on the application of the tools of financial analysis in project work.

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