Land degradation and soil erosion have emerged as serious challenges to smallholder farmers throughout southern Africa. To combat these challenges, conservation agriculture (CA) is widely promoted as a sustainable package of agricultural practices. Despite the many potential benefits of CA, however, adoption remains low. Yet relatively little is known about the decision-making process in choosing to adopt CA. This article attempts to fill this important knowledge gap by studying CA adoption in southern Malawi.

The costs of doing nothing about land degradation are several times higher than the costs of taking action to reverse it. Despite the crucial role land plays in human welfare and development, investments in sustainable land management are low, especially in developing countries. These findings come from the book, Economics of Land Degradation and Improvement—A Global Assessment for Sustainable Development, which examines the costs of land degradation and what needs to be done to reverse it.

Agriculture and climate change are inextricably linked. Agriculture is part of the climate change problem, contributing about 13.5 percent of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (with forestry contributing an additional 19 percent), compared with 13.1 percent from transportation. Agriculture is, however, also part of the solution, offering promising opportunities for mitigating GHG emissions through carbon sequestration, soil and land use management, and biomass production.