Conservation Soil Tillage—Between the Science and Farmers Expectations—an Overview from Southern to Northern Europe

Soil degradation and climate change are the most degrading (human and/or naturally induced) processes, making agricultural production more challenging than ever before. Traditional tillage methods, characterized by intensive mechanical soil disturbance (dominantly using a plow), have come under question for their role in exacerbating soil erosion, depleting organic matter, and contributing to the decline in soil biodiversity and other degrading processes. These practices, while effective in the short term for crop production, undermine the sustainability of agricultural systems, posing a threat to food security and environmental stability. Conservation soil tillage (CST) emerges as a promising alternative platform. By reducing the intensity and frequency of tillage, CST practices aim to maintain adequate soil cover, minimize erosion, and encourage biological activity and organic matter accumulation, thus ensuring soil productivity and resilience against additional degradation and climate variation. Efforts made by scientists and the government to go over it sometimes are not sufficient. Farmers' expectations of benefits are the final keystone for the integration of CST as a dominant sustainable practice. Analyses from six European countries pointed to a high level of diversity in readiness and willingness to accept and different levels of knowledge about the adoption of CST.