Global Potential of No-Tillage in Enhancing Soil Carbon and Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions While Sustaining Crop Yields

Abstract

Pursuing the balance between environmental sustainability and agricultural productivity remains a critical challenge for achieving global sustainable development goals. No-tillage (NT), as a key measure of sustainable conservation and climate-smart agriculture, offers a promising approach to addressing this challenge. However, its comprehensive effects on soil carbon accumulation, greenhouse gas emissions, and crop yields remain unquantified at the global scale, limiting our ability to optimize both environmental and agronomic outcomes. Here, we conducted such a global synthesis by combining a meta-analysis of 8,303 paired observations from 1,371 studies with a random forest model to assess the influence of site conditions and management on NT effects. Our meta-analysis demonstrates integrated benefits of NT in enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in 0–30 cm layer by 11.0% and mitigating greenhouse gas (the sum of CO2, CH4, and N2O in CO2-equivalent) emissions by 13.5%, without a significant impact on crop yields (−0.6% ± 1.5%). The integrated benefits are stronger in drier climates and coarser-textured soils, and they exhibit significant time-dependent patterns. Our prediction identifies 44% of global croplands as being optimal for NT’s integrated benefits, mainly in Africa, South Asia, and North America. Adopting NT in these areas would result in a 4.8% increase in major food-crop yields, a 15.2% increase in 0–30 cm SOC stocks, and a 6.4% reduction in global cropland emissions, respectively. These findings underscore the relevance of implementing NT in suitable regions by adopting it into Good Agricultural Practice Guidelines.