Emily Baker, Brian Brooks, Jacob Fisher, Elise Smutko
Soil is a very important natural resource. It allows for crops to take root and grow into bountiful crops. Without soil, humankind would have a challenging time growing healthy crops. Recently, the International Soil and Water Conservation group estimated that soil quality will drastically decline through 2050 as population and GDP increase. Authors Dumanski and Peiretti offers three ways to help conserve soil: no tillage, conservation agriculture (CA), and sustainable land management (SLM) methods of agriculture. No tillage specializes in conservation at the farm level, while CA and SLM are important at the corporate farm level. If farmers and multinational corporations do not prioritize protecting soil, they may find themselves waiting hundreds of years for new fertile soil to be produced. This academic article is interesting to our group because soil is often taken for granted and not thought of as a resource that needs protecting. This article goes into detail about various methods of farming that keep the topsoil intact while still maintaining high crop yields.
Dumanski, Julian, and R. A. Peiretti. “Modern Concepts of Soil Conservation.” NeuroImage, Academic Press, 18 Mar. 2015, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095633915300460.