Tillage accelerates organic matter destruction under tropical agriculture conditions. No-till cropping systems involving direct seeding on permanent plant cover enable short-term soil restoration. Cover plant choices are crucial. Soil carbon can thus be boosted to levels generally found in natural ecosystems, even when starting from degraded soils. Direct seeding systems promote net CO2 storage rather than net production. Cropping systems can be regularly improved via the innovation-extension strategy, while meeting the requirements of researchers, agricultural professionals and regional institutions. This experimental approach places upstream research in an in situ context. A network of experimental units and reference farms was set up to provide regional training support, wherein research designs future systems, models their functioning, assesses and explains their impacts on physical and human environments before their extension.