> We no-till farm thousands of acres in the middle of millions more acres of no-till grain farming.

1) Does this practice work in every circumstance?

2) If so, why do farmers continue the practice of tillage?

3) Why did the practice of tillage originate in the first place?

It seems extremely unlikely that the practice was adopted and then continued to persist for no reason.

Tilling comes in many different forms. The old plow is out nearly everywhere because it is so bad. Debending on local climate and soil some places farmers do some tilling others do none. There are lots of little companies scattered around the world that make a tillage tool for that local area that wouldn't be useful elsewhere if they tried to sell it.

There are circumstances and soil types that encourage tillage, usually dealing with water. Organic farming trades spray for diesel fuel. And farmers don't like change, but no-till is so ubiquitous that it's hard to find farms that till unless it's unavoidable, such as fixing problems from harvest time.