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The world’s model farms

USA, Brazil, Argentina, Russia

Living soil

With no plowing, cover crops and crop rotation, soil builds up organic matter and water. Almost 15% of the world’s cropland already works this way.

Soybeans coming up through a rye cover crop
Photo: USDA NRCS South Dakota · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
No-till seeding
Photo: USDA NRCS South Dakota · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
A cover crop in the field
Photo: Trevor Littlewood · CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Numbers

  • Conservation agriculture: 205.4 million ha, 14.7% of the world’s cropland (2018/19); growing by more than 10 million ha a year.
  • Russia and Ukraine: from 0.1 million ha (2008/09) to 6.9 million ha (2018/19).
  • Cover crops in the USA: ≈7.3 million ha (2022), 17% more than in 2017.
Sources (2)

What to learn

Garden

Don’t dig the soil over: mulch and green manure do the spade’s job.

Farm

A cover crop after harvest holds the soil, water and nitrogen until spring.

Agribusiness

Fewer machinery passes mean less fuel and fewer hours; switch over part of a field at a time and compare with a control.

Video

A video search on third-party platforms — it opens in a new tab.

YouTube

Other farms

Netherlands · Westland

Dutch greenhouses

×13

tomato yield vs. the world average

Read more Photo: Rob Oo from NL · CC BY 2.0
Spain · Almeria

Almeria’s sea of greenhouses

€4.1 billion

in fruit and vegetable exports, 2024/25 season

Read more Photo: NASA · Public domain
Israel · Arava and Negev

Israel’s water

≈90%

of treated wastewater goes to irrigation

Read more Photo: Eddau · CC BY-SA 3.0