Soil Health

Optimal nutrient management improves soil fertility, enhances soil organic matter content and improves physical, chemical and biological soil properties.

Most agronomists agree that optimal nutrient management entails starting with on-farm organic sources of nutrients and then supplementing them with manufactured fertilizers to achieve the farmer’s yield goal, and that manufactured fertilizers and organic sources of nutrients can, and should, be used in a complementary fashion.

The integration of organic and mineral sources of nutrients should be seen in the context of overall crop production, which includes the selection of crop varieties, pest control, efficient use of water, soil management and other aspects of integrated farm management.

Read more about Integrated Plant Nutrient Management below:

Soil conservation practices and the widespread adoption of fertilizer best management practices can also help prevent soil depletion (i.e., soils lacking one or several essential nutrients), which in extreme cases triggers desertification. Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, primarily caused by human activities and climatic variations. Although other regions, mostly in Asia and Latin America, are also concerned, the most dramatic examples of desertification are found in Africa, where declining soil fertility is linked to declining agricultural productivity.