Assessing the potential of no-tillage farming across contrasting European soils

This interdisciplinary thesis explored no-tillage adoption and its impacts on soils. In no-tillage farming, seeding is performed directly into the soil, causing minimal disturbance and representing an alternative to conventional tillage in which seedbeds are prepared with various field operations.
The analytical approach was based on Actor-Network Theory, understanding adoption as a negotiated outcome of interconnected human and non-human actors. Their interaction co-created their multiple roles and knowledges. The assemblage of actor-networks was informed by semi-structured interviews with conventional and no-tillage neighbours from Spain and the UK. Results showed the multiplicity of no-tillage as a tool, technological package and system. Moreover, adoption to reduce production costs linked to meteorological risks and financial sustainability, and was changing the role of yield as a symbol of good farming. Environmental paths driving or constraining adoption connected farmers’ land stewardship with soils’ and herbicides’ roles. Furthermore, farmers’ innovative roles and their bonds with global farming communities supported the long-term adoption of no-tillage.
The assessment of no-tillage impact on soils considered soils’ multiplicity. First, soils’ multiple roles in farming were described from interviews’ data. According to those roles, farmers assed their management positively, whether it was through enacting soils as natural entities to be tamed using the right tool after analysing field conditions, by applying a technological package based on conservation agriculture principles or by enhancing soils life and self-organising capabilities. Second, soil structure and compaction were assessed scientifically with on-farm tests and laboratory analysis. Results showed that tillage management had a lower influence on soil structure than other soil properties. Nonetheless, on comparable soils, no-tillage presented similar or better structure but also similar or higher compaction. Finally, it is argued that soil science should engage with the different actor-networks that enact soils to enrich the understanding of soils’ multiplicity.