Soils, Land and Food
Managing the Land during the Twenty-First Century

This book describes how technological advances in soil and land management can help to increase food production.

Alan Wild (Author)

9780521527590, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 9 January 2003

258 pages, 24 b/w illus. 40 tables
22.8 x 15.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.4 kg

'Soils, Land and Food is worthy and well informed … make library acquisition requests for it, and include it on student reading lists! It should also be purchased as an invaluable source of sound information, with its rich, wide-ranging list of references. The scope of the book is indeed impressive … always accessible to an academic reader from another specialty …' European Journal of Soil Science

A major challenge of the twenty-first century will be to ensure sufficient global food production to cope with the burgeoning world population. Soils, Land and Food is a short text aimed at undergraduates, graduates, agricultural scientists and policy makers which describes how the use of technology in soil management can increase and sustain agricultural production. The book leads the reader through the development of techniques of land management and discusses reasons why some agricultural projects have succeeded while others have failed. It shows how surveying and protecting soils before new land is brought into cultivation, raising soil fertility, increasing inputs and improving economic conditions can all help to increase food production. Particular emphasis is placed on the need for both economic change and technological intervention in developing countries where, in many cases, food production will need to more than double in the next fifty years.

Preface
Acknowledgements
1. Managing land for food production in the twenty-first century: an outline
2. Natural resources for sustainable development
3. The development of agriculture and systems of land management
4. Maintaining and improving soil fertility
5. Land degradation and its control
6. Raising yields: use of fertilisers
7. Raising yields: water for rainfed crops and irrigation
8. Managing change for land use
9. Increasing and sustaining agricultural production
10. Increasing agricultural production: examples of Africa, India and China
11. Prospects, uncertainties and summary
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Agricultural science [TVB], Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]