The Possibility to Adapt the Shaft Tillage Cultivation Method to Arid Land Farming (THE 1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ARID LAND (ICAL 1) "DESERT TECHNOLOGY X (DT X)")

Desert is said to be the product of human agriculture, mainly of monoculture practices. Monoculture is considered to be a method of sweeping away all natural vegetation on the land surface and producing uniform crop. It is based on soil fertility which was created by the previous natural forestry decomposition in the soil. Therefore, thoughtlessly the repeating of monoculture causes deterioration of soil which at the same time increases the risk of desertification. Most of the recent studies on sustainable agriculture have focused on maintaining the biodiversity of farmland. Nowadays, agro-forestry in which agriculture coexists with forest has been introduced and is being carried out in arid land. In this study we propose the shaft tillage cultivation method which is under developing as a new cultivation system for full automatic solar powered farming system, and as a sustainable cultivation method for arid land agriculture. Shaft Tillage Cultivation was designed to minimize power requirements and to reduce damage on soil structure when tilling. It has also big merits on keeping the natural cycle in the farm land. This paper explains the possibility to adapt Shaft Tillage Cultivation to arid land farming.