Does conservation farming actually work in practice?

When you are a subsistence farmer, this question really matters. Why would you change your farming method and risk getting even less food than you do at present?

With 95% of people in the communities where we work not having enough to eat, it's important to get farming right. Our farming work is part of a bigger global effort. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #2 is 'End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.'

When we begin partnering with a new community, our team works with a group of villagers to begin a demonstration plot. This small community work together on the plot to trial conservation farming techniques, learning all the necessary tasks throughout the year, under the guidance of our trainers. Preparing the soil, how to plant efficiently, how to care for the plants and for the soil... In this way, 'seeing is believing!' - both for the group and the wider community who pass by.

People learn the how and the why of conservation farming in a safe, risk-free manner, and then can scale up the following and share the news with their neighbours. See the comparison in this video!

You can imagine the take up the following year! The lady in the second half of the video will be among them, moving from despair to joy!

So, does Conservation Farming make any difference? Absolutely - it gives people life!