SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND CONSERVATION TILLAGE - MANAGING THE CONTRADICTIONS

This paper examines the development of a discourse within agriculture which promotes the adoption of conservation tillage as environmentally sustainable farming. The analysis begins with the argument that the d iscourse emerged during the 1980s as a response to the environmental i mpacts of conventional agriculture. It is then argued that the focus o n tillage practices over other alternative solutions to these impacts must be understood within a broader analysis of the political-economic developments in Canadian agriculture. The contradictory interests of the various sectors of agribusiness capital, both in sustaining the us e of expensive chemical inputs and in controlling the prices paid to f armers within the context of the farm economic crisis, are identified as playing a vital role in shaping the focus on tillage practices. It is contended that conservation tillage offered a means of mediating th ese contradictions in two ways. First, conservation tillage provided a basis for the claim that chemical pollution and soil depletion proble ms were being resolved without the need for more substantial changes i n the chemically-based production system and, second, it gave farmers a means and a rationale for cutting production;costs in the face of co ntinuing crises in prices and profitability at the farm gate level.