en.Wedoany.com Reported - Approximately 70% of arable land in Russia's Samara region is now cultivated using minimum tillage methods, as disclosed at the 11th International Congress "Climate, Soil Fertility, Agricultural Technologies" which opened in Samara on June 25. Experts from China, Brazil, Portugal, India, and dozens of Russian regions participated in the conference.
The event was organized by the National Movement for Conservation Agriculture (Национальное движение сберегающего земледелия), the "Petersburg Dialogue" Forum, the Russian Academy of Sciences (РАН), and the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ТПП РФ), with support from the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (Агентство стратегических инициатив). The forum's theme aligns with national agricultural policy directions, where key future development areas for the agro-industrial complex include maintaining and improving soil fertility, involving a shift towards conservation tillage technologies and rational management of land resources.
Lyudmila Orlova (Людмила Орлова), Chair of the National Movement for Conservation Agriculture, noted at the opening of the plenary session that global soil degradation trends are evident. According to international expert assessments, soil resources are being lost at a rate equivalent to a football field every few seconds, directly impacting water resources. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergey Shevchenko (Сергей Шевченко), recalled that at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the Samara province had 6 million dessiatines of fertile land used for grain production, but long-term historical land use systems have led to a significant decline in humus content.
The Samara Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Самарский научный центр РАН) is conducting large-scale research aimed at protecting soil, increasing yields, and absorbing greenhouse gases to combat climate change. Sergey Akimov (Сергей Акимов), Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food for the Samara Region, emphasized that about 70% of the region's arable land now uses minimum tillage technology (технология минимальной обработки почвы). The vast majority of agricultural practitioners have abandoned traditional deep plowing, while chemical improvement and afforestation projects are also being implemented to protect land from erosion and retain moisture. He also noted that the Russian Ministry of Agriculture provides financial assistance to agricultural practitioners, reimbursing 50% to 90% of project costs when implementing land improvement projects.
Participants will attend sessions on topics including the microbiome of agricultural ecosystems, entry into the international carbon market CORSIA, and sustainable water resource management. On the second day of the congress, guests will visit the first agricultural carbon test site "Agro Engineering" (Агро Инженерия) in the Pokhvistnevo District (Похвистневский район), located at the base of the industrial partner ООО «Орловка-АИЦ», to observe actual field experiments firsthand.
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