Soil tillage is the operation in farming that is most energy intensive. In many developing countries, where farmers use animal traction, tillage is the bottleneck to get the seedbed prepared. Reducing tillage means that farmers have more time for timely planting. This is very important in Africa, for example, where every day, every week you lose in planting time can lead to reductions in yield. The extreme cases of soil destruction are the result of mechanized tillage operations, simply because the farmers till deeper and faster, and the weight of the machines causes soil compaction.
Animal traction is less harmful, but it can still contribute to a certain extent of soil erosion.
This is less related to the tillage as such, but to the fact that if the soil is left open and exposed to wind and rain, erosion occurs. This is actually one of the major constraints for the transfer from conventional tillage to minimum tillage. Despite the clear advantages for the farmer, there is still a need for different machines. Farmers need a planter that can operate on soil which has residues still on the surface. These planters already exist for animal traction and manual mechanization as well, but they are more expensive than conventional planters.