Video on reduced tillage: Farmers' motivations and problems

The TILMAN-ORG consortium presented first results of a survey on organic farmers' motivations and problems related to minimum tillage at the 7th Organic Producers Conference, which took place on January 22 and 23, 2013 in Birmingham, UK. A video documents statements of conference participants and TILMAN-ORG researchers.

At this event, also the results of the TILMAN-ORG literature survey, that was carried out to provide an insight into the current state of research under different climatic conditions in Europe, were presented.

At the European scale weed control and destroying previous cover crops appeared to be the biggest challenges in practice. But farmers interviewed at the conference said that weed control is not the main problem in the UK. In fact, under the wet conditions in the UK, organic farmers find destroying grass-ley without using the plough a bigger challenge As minimum tillage is in its infancy in the UK, the farmers really appreciated the coordinated research of TILMAN-ORG.

The overall goals of the project Reduced tillage and green manures for sustainable organic cropping systems – TILMAN-ORG are to design improved organic cropping systems with: enhanced productivity and nutrient use efficiency, more efficient weed management and increased biodiversity, but lower carbon footprints. The project is funded in the framework of CORE Organic II. The project is coordinated by FiBL.