Soil Productivity and Sustainability

The concept became widely accepted as it was realized that the conventional methods of production are not meshed well and that sustainability does not mean going back to the horse-drawn days but taking the best scientific knowledge to approach farming differently. The economic viability of farmers must obviously be maintained, but farming must meet the needs of future generations and society as a whole, not just the profit maximization for the current land user. 

It should be ob nous that more sustainable does not mean low-external input. Low-input agricultural systems are in many ways much less sustainable than higher external input systems because they do not meet current farmer and societal needs, degrade soils through erosion and nutrient depletion, and have additional adverse impacts, such as requiring more land to be cultivated. There are numerous examples of how low-input systems have become much more sustainable by use of greater external inputs. 

Ponting, C. 1990. Historical Perspectives on Sustato-able Development, Environment, 32(9 4-9, 31-33. 

The r ature and Properties of Soils, Ninth Edition, Macmillan Publishing, New York, NY, U.S.A. 

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