Farmers’ adoption of conservation agriculture: A review and synthesis of recent research Duncan Knowler a, * , Ben Bradshaw b,1 a School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6 b Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2101 Accepted 30 January 2006 Abstract In light of growing concerns over the implications of many conventional agricultural practices, and especially the deep tilling of soils, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), among others, has begun to promote a package of soil conserving practices under the banner of ‘conservation agriculture’. While the title might be novel, its associated practices have long been employed by farmers, and studied by social scientists seeking to understand the reasons for their adoption and non-adoption. This paper reviews and synthesizes this past research in order to iden- tify those independent variables that regularly explain adoption, and thereby facilitate policy pre- scriptions to augment adoption around the world. While a disaggregated analysis of a subset of commonly used variables reveals some underlying patterns of influence, once various contextual fac- tors (e.g. study locale or method) are controlled, the primary finding of the synthesis is that there are few if any universal variables that regularly explain the adoption of conservation agriculture across past analyses. Given the limited prospect of identifying such variables through further research, we conclude that efforts to promote conservation agriculture will have to be tailored to reflect the par- ticular conditions of individual locales. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Sustainability; Soil erosion; Farming systems; Environment; Tillage 0306-9192/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2006.01.003 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 604 291 3421; fax: +1 604 291 4968. E-mail addresses: djk@sfu.ca (D. Knowler), bbradsha@uoguelph.ca (B. Bradshaw). 1 Tel.: (519) 824-4120x58460; fax: (519) 837-2940. Food Policy 32 (2007) 25–48 www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol