Sustainable Soil Management Is More than What and How Crops Are Grown - Principles of Sustainable Soil Management in Agroecosystems - page 338

14.7 Large-Scale Landscape-Level Benefits from Sustainable Soil Management ....376
14.7.1 Canada: Carbon Offset Scheme in Alberta ...................................... 377
14.7.2 Brazil: Watershed Services in the Paraná Basin .............................. 378
14.7.3 Spain: Soil Conservation in Olive Groves ........................................ 379
14.8 Policy, Institutional, Technology, and Knowledge Implications .................. 381
14.8.1 Policy and Institutional Support ....................................................... 381
14.8.2 Technology and Knowledge Support ................................................ 383
14.9 Concluding Comments ................................................................................. 385
Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... 387
References .............................................................................................................. 387
14.1 INTRODUCTION
Soil management in agricultural landscapes should deploy production practices
that are in harmony with soil-mediated ecosystem functions if they are to deliver
a broad range of ecosystem services. Such services include edible and nonedible
biological products, clean drinking water, processes that decompose and transform
organic matter, and cleansing processes that maintain air quality. Several catego-
ries of ecosystem services are recognized: provisioning, regulating, cultural, and
supporting (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA] 2005). In agricultural land-
scapes, provisioning ecosystem services can be delivered effectively and efficiently
when the linked regulatory and supporting services are allowed to operate normally.
Ecosystem functions that protect and enhance regulatory and supporting ecosystem
services in the soil and landscape in which crops are grown appear, in general, to
offer an effective way of harnessing the best productivity, ecological, and economic
performances.
Thus, agricultural soil management can only be considered sustainable if field
soil health and productive capacity are kept at an optimum to provide ecosystem
services such as provision of clean water, hydrologic and nutrient cycling, habitats
for microorganisms and mesofauna, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation.
Across agricultural and mixed land use landscapes, such ecosystem services form
the necessary conditions for society to be able to sustainably harness the biological
potentials of the altered agroecosystems and the associated provisioning services of
food, vegetation, water, etc.
In general, over the past several millennia, agricultural land use globally has led
to soil physical, chemical, biological, and hydrological degradation, and this state of
affairs continues unabated in most farmlands (MEA 2005; Montgomery 2007; FAO
2011a). This is true on small and large farms, on farms using mechanized or manual
farm power, in developing and in industrialized countries, in the tropics, and outside
the tropics. The dominant farming systems paradigm globally is based on mechani-
cal tillage of various types to control weeds (often along with herbicides), soften
the seedbed for crop establishment, and loosen compacted subsoil. At the center of
this paradigm, there are farming practices for crop, soil, nutrient, water, and pest
management that are considered by most agricultural stakeholders to be “modern,
good, and normal.” However, the same farming practices have also forced farmers