The 8th World
Congress on Conservation Agriculture (8WCCA) is jointly organized by the
European Conservation Agriculture Federation (ECAF), and its member in
Switzerland, Swiss No-till (SNT), with the support of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the African Conservation Tillage
Network (ACT). It will be held in Bern, Switzerland, from 29 June to 2 July
2020.
The theme of the Congress:
The Future of Farming: Profitable and Sustainable Farming with
Conservation Agriculture
Why the 8WCCA?
The first World Congress on
Conservation Agriculture was organized jointly by ECAF and FAO in 2001 in
Madrid, Spain. Since then the event has been organized in different regions
around the world (Iguassu-Brazil, 2003; Nairobi-Kenya, 2005; New Delhi-India,
2009; Brisbane-Australia, 2011; Winnipeg-Canada, 2014; Rosario-Argentina, 2017)
and in its 8th edition the Congress will be held in Europe from
where it first originated.
Conservation Agriculture (CA)
is recognized as an agricultural system capable of overcoming the very serious
sustainability weaknesses shown by the conventional tillage-based agriculture.
Whereas in 2015/16 CA was practiced on around 180 million hectares of cropland
worldwide, its regional distribution is uneven. Europe (where around 5% of the
cropland area -3.6 million ha- is under CA) has shown a considerable adoption
only in some countries, despite many promising empirical and scientific results
conferring its relevance and suitability in Europe as well as in Africa and Asia.
Thus, this World Congressis
an opportunity to take a leap forward in terms of reviewing the recent progress
made in the practice of CA and in knowledge generation regarding CA worldwide
and putting this experience and know-how at the service of the European
agriculture that will be facing the first steps in the implementation of the
new Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). There is also a need to accelerate the
adoption by smallholders in Africa, Asia and Central America and 8WCCA will
provide an opportunity to share and discuss successful examples of uptake of CA
by smallholders from around the world so that it can be mainstreamed more
rapidly.
The theme of the 8WCCA aims
to highlight that CA is the only ecological and regenerative agricultural model
able to bring together the profitability of farmers and the environmental
protection while offering ecosystem services, climate change mitigation and
adaptability and satisfying the demands of civil society. This will be
elaborated and discussed through technical presentations on the following four
sub-themes:
The Congress also seeks to
alert EU policy stakeholders and technical officers of the urgent need to adopt
sustainable soil and production system management practices of CA to achieve
the objectives of the CAP 2020.
Who should attend?
-
Scientists, educationists and extensionists of any discipline
dealing with CA systems development and with sustainable soil, water,
agriculture and landscape management.
Congress venue and language
The event will be celebrated
in Bern (Switzerland) between 29th June and 2nd July
2020. The first three days will deal with indoor sessions and the last day will
be a field day when practical aspects of the concept and principles of CA and
its role as a climate smart agriculture in sustainable intensification will be
demonstrated.
All presentations and
discussions during the event will be held in English and there will be no
translation.
Paper and poster contributions
All participants are invited
to present papers on any of the Congress sub-themes. Abstracts must be
submitted not later than 01-11-2019 through the Online submission platform
(soon to be available at 8wcca.org). They should not exceed 400 words and
should clearly describe the objectives, methods, results and conclusions of the
work. An International Scientific Committee will review all contributions.
Papers accepted for oral
presentations will be included in the oral sessions of the Congress and authors
will be informed, in advance about the length of time available for their
presentations.
Papers accepted for poster
presentations will be included in the poster sessions of the Congress.
Final decisions for paper
acceptance for oral or poster presentation will be announced by 31-01-2020.
Abstracts of registered participants will be distributed in the Congress
Abstract Proceedings to be published before the Congress. In addition, authors
can also choose to submit a full paper by 15-03-2020, which will be made
available online.
Abstracts or full papers will
only be considered for publication if at least one of the authors is registered
at the Congress, with a maximum of two contributions per registration.
Conference registration
On-line registration will be
possible. An online registration platform will be available soon at the 8WCCA
web site (8wcca.org). Registration fees and application dates will be made
available at the web site.
The registration gives right
to:
-
Attend the welcome and opening session, technical sessions,
field day (incl. transport from the Congress venue in Bern), coffee breaks,
lunches at the venue of the event, and welcome reception.
Sponsors
The organizers welcome
individuals, companies and institutions interested in supporting the 8WCCA. For
further information please contact the organizers at info@8wcca.org.
CONTACT
US
Rond Point Schuman, 6, box 5
Brussels
B-1040
Belgium
info@8wcca.org