Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 2.4
Results from the 1993 IFRLP and the Value of Different Metrics of Soil
Quality
When you judge the quality of soil, how important are the following characteristics?
Not at All
Important
(%)
Not Very
Important
(%)
Very
Important
(%)
Moderately
Important (%)
Moisture holding capacity
0
2
31
67
Compaction
1
4
36
59
Results of a soil test
0
4
37
59
Texture of the soil
1
2
44
53
Presence of earthworms
1
6
43
50
Visible organic matter
0
5
48
47
Amount of weed species
3
14
44
39
Crusting
1
15
51
33
Color of the soil
4
20
51
25
Smell of the soil
6
30
44
20
Source: Lasley, P., Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll 1993 Summary Report , Department of Sociology,
Iowa State University, Ames, IA. 1993.
complexes on agricultural lands, and there are engineers skilled in remaking the
landscape building levees to protect against flooding and terraces to reduce soil loss.
All of these people have their own version of which soils are likely to best match the
uses they wish to put them to.
Shifts in precipitation patterns, long-term climate changes, and population growth
place significant pressures on agriculture to efficiently and effectively provision soci-
ety with food, fiber, and energy products, while protecting the environment. Lands
with soil capacities to meet these highly valued uses are limited. Agricultural man-
agement practices play an important role in whether the soil resource is degraded
and loses value or is enhanced in value. Farmer concepts of the risk to their crop pro-
ductivity and the extent to which their soils are vulnerable to degradation are often
different than soil scientists' assessments. Expert judgments of risk are highly cor-
related with technical estimates; layperson judgments of risk are sensitive to other
factors such as catastrophic potential, controllability, and perceived threat to future
generations and are often considerably different than expert risk estimates (Slovic
2009).
When a soil is redistributed to a new position in the landscape, it loses its valued
functionality in its original location and may or may not provide value in the new
location. Erosion of highly productive soils from the hilltop to the toe slope may
retain the soil within field but is likely to redistribute the field capacity to produce a
high-yielding crop. Similarly, high-quality soil lost to wind erosion or carried in run-
off events is lost to one location, becoming sediment and possibly a fertile floodplain
downstream, or may become buried in water, under sand, rocks, and lower-quality
 
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