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support. Organic farming is good as an alternative as it has a distinct identity that
other alternative approaches do not have.
11.7 KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM EXCHANGE
The combination of spirit from within and complete interconnection with everyone
and everything, though wonderful to consider, lays an obligation on us to care for
each other and for our environment. Effectively, everything we do to each other and
to the environment, we do to ourselves. As soils experts, our primary contact is with
farmers and, to a lesser extent, stakeholders and policy makers. I was brought up in
a strong rural community in North East Scotland where the soils are highly fertile
and productive, but where there is a strong tradition of farming methods handed
down by succeeding generations. These traditions are now facing substantial change
as farmers age and have difficulty with succession. Although mixed, the farming is
intensive with good crop yields from the excellent, fertile brown forest soils derived
from basic igneous rocks. Even so, continuous arable cropping without farmyard
manure application can impair structural quality (Figure 11.4). Agriculture there, as
elsewhere in the West, depends heavily on the use of machinery. I recently attended
a vintage tractor rally where we spent a day and a half poring over old tractors and
reminiscing. I was the only person to mention the soil over which the tractors passed.
Machinery is novel, attractive, labor saving, and a source of pride, but it may distract
farmers from learning about and connecting with their soils and crops (Uekotter
2006).
(a)
(b)
FIGURE 11.4
Brown earth from North East Scotland, which was cloddy and gray in the
arable field (a) but brown and with good crumb structure (b) in the grassy area where the
vegetation was natural and the soil had not been tilled for at least 10 years.
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