Soil quality—The key to a sustainable agriculture

Abstract

Soil is the world's most vital component for food and fiber production: preservation of this critical natural resource is paramount for protecting the environment, and ensuring that current and future populations are healthy and well-fed. In many countries of the world, including the United States, soils are being degraded at an alarming rate by wind and water erosion, desertification, and salinization resulting from misuse and improper farming practices. Often the topsoil is lost at a rate that far exceeds the capacity of natural processes to regenerate it. With soil degradation, there is a concomitant decline in soil quality, i.e., the soil's capacity to produce healthy and nutritious crops, resist erosion, and reduce the impact of environmental stresses on plants. Many decades of research have consistently shown that the best means of improving and restoring soil quality and productivity is by proper and regular additions of organic materials mainly through the use of crop rotations, cover crops, crop residues, animal manures, composts, and reduced tillage.