Conservation Tillage and Cropping Innovation: Constructing the New Culture of Agriculture

Excerpt

Conservation Tillage and Cropping Innovation: Constructing the New Culture of Agriculture by C. Milton Coughenour and Shankariah Chamala. 2000. Iowa State University Press, 2112 South State Avenue, Ames, Iowa 50014 ISBN 0–813101947–4 (Hardback) 360 pp. $59.95.

The book provides a comparative analysis of no-tillage technology and the subsequent diffusion of numerous innovative techniques using case studies and secondary data. The authors stress that successful conservation tillage systems are farmer managed, that many innovations were initiated by personal dissatisfaction with the status quo, and that social networks were crucial for linking people and sustaining the change through several action-learning sessions. They also help the reader understand the cultural headlock that moldboard plowing had, not only on farmers but also on the larger U.S. and Australian societies. The authors explain the evolution of “plow culture …