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A long-term annual crop study in Five Points, California, shows that the combined use of no-tillage, surface residue retention, and cover crops improves soil health compared to conventional practices common to the region. Several chemical, biological, and physical soil health indicators were improved when these practices were combined. Our data suggest that farmers stand to gain multiple synergistic benefits from the integrated use of these practices by increasing soil structural stability, water infiltration and storage, and agroecosystem biodiversity, and improving the efficiencies of the carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles of their production systems.

Soils are critical for agriculture and natural ecosystems and need protection, and adherence to nature's principles. The objective of this work is to understand how nature manages resources and describe management of the 'living soil’ and its soil productivity and use nature's laws as guidelines for the management. These guidelines provide the foundation of modern Conservation Agriculture (CA) systems characterised by three principles: continuous no or minimum soil disturbance, permanent biomass soil cover, and biodiversity in crop rotations, all of which form the basis for the protection against degradation and for sustaining productivity. Historically, soil tillage was considered a necessary component of agriculture, but it is the root cause of soil degradation. Tillage-based agriculture with bare soils and poor cropping diversity violates nature's laws of soil productivity. Reasons for soil tillage are primarily for short-term convenience of farm management. The negative impacts of tillage on soil health and function may appear inconsequential. However, their cumulative effects over time result in major soil degradation and loss in productivity. Tillage in any form and intensity destroys soil biological, physical, chemical, and hydrological properties. Mechanical tillage is not experienced in natural ecosystems. In CA systems, natural conditions are emulated offering similar productivity, economic and environmental benefits to both large and small landowners globally. In 2018/19, CA was practiced on more than 205 million hectares across more than 100 countries. The impacts of climate change and tillage on food production and environmental degradation require the application of nature-based solutions as Conservation Agriculture.

As the world population and food production demands rise, keeping agricultural soils and landscapes healthy and productive are of paramount importance to sustaining local and global food security and the flow of ecosystem services to society. The global population, expected to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, will put additional pressure on the available land area and resources for agricultural production. Sustainable production intensification for food security is a major challenge to both industrialized and developing countries. The paper focuses on the results from long-term multi-factorial experiments involving tillage practices, crop rotations and fertilization to study the interactions amongst the treatments in the context of sustainable production intensification. The paper discusses the results in relation to reported performance of crops and soil quality in Conservation Agriculture systems that are based on no or minimum soil disturbance (no-till seeding and weeding), maintenance of soil mulch cover with crop biomass and cover crops, and diversified cropping s involving annuals and perennials. Conservation Agriculture also emphasizes the necessity of an agro-ecosystems approach to the management of agricultural land for sustainable production intensification, as well as to the site-specificity of agricultural production. Arguments in favor of avoiding the use of soil tillage are discussed together with agro-ecological principles for sustainable intensification of agriculture. More interdisciplinary systems research is required to support the transformation of agriculture from the conventional tillage agriculture to a more sustainable agriculture based on the principles and practices of Conservation Agriculture, along with other complementary practices of integrated crop, nutrient, water, pest, energy and farm power management.