Direct Sowing, Much-based and Conservation Tillage Agriculture (DMC)

Background history

The idea of a Global Partnership Program on conservation agriculture was first raised in late 1999, as a direct response to the GFAR request for proposals in the occasion of the 2000 GFAR Conference. The initial investigators of a potential DMC GPP were CIRAD staff members who perceived an opportunity to simultaneously pursue two institutional priorities: Conservation Agriculture and GFAR itself. The first step was to call a stakeholder meeting in January 2000 at Paris. The meeting was well-attended with good representation from various stakeholder groups(NARS, NGO, IARCs, Regional Fora). It was decided to launch a DMC program within the framework of GFAR. Subsequently, a proposal to GFAR was prepared and presented during GFAR 2000 meeting at Dresden.

Early facilitators of the process were representatives of CIRAD and CIMMYT who both invested considerably in DMC activities, each one maintaining their respective DMC networks in operation.

In March 2002, a full-time coordinator was identified and activities started for the establishment of a DMC Facilitation Unit based in CIRAD in Montpellier, France. Unfortunately at this date, delays were encountered in appointing a full time DMC facilitator mainly due to difficulties in attracting sufficient funds to sustain the facilitation unit . For these reasons since the end of 2003, together with the departure of the facilitator the DMC program has been put on a stand-by mode.

Goals, objectives, purpose

DMC's goal is to help improve food security and alleviate poverty, while conserving natural resources and encouraging more sustainable forms of agriculture, by fostering broader use of sound agro-ecosystem management practices, especially those centered on direct sowing, mulched-based systems and conservation tillage.
The objective is to strengthen the capacity of key stakeholders to develop suitable DMC systems and to accelerate their wide adoption. Specific objectives:

• develop a framework for comparing experiences
• synthesize lessons learned
• Identify gaps and encourage stakeholders to fill them
• Provide support and feedback to decentralized initiatives
• Foster the multiplication of successful experiences

For more information please link to http://agroecologie.cirad.fr/dmc/index.php.