OPINION: Zero-till can add to the till.

from BUSINESS LINE, November 12, 2009 Falling costs, rising incomes. Thus reads a refreshingly reassuring section-title in an essay on zero-tillage included in MillionsFed: Proven successes in agricultural development, edited by David J. Spielman and Rajul Pandya-Lorch (www.ifpri.org ). Zero tillage, for starters, is a cultivation practice that not only helps preserve soil fertility and conserves scarce water, but also boosts yields and increases farmers' profits by reducing their production costs, explains Olaf Erenstein, the author. "Instead of ploughing their fields and then planting seeds, farmers who use zero tillage deposit seeds into holes drilled into the unploughed fields." An estimated 6.2 lakh wheat farmers in northern India have adopted …