Soil management for better crop production and sustainable agriculture

Abstract

Sustainable agriculture is of prime importance in the present conditions of rapidly increasing human population and decreasing cultivable land resources. Since soil is a natural medium for the growth of plants, a better soil health is considered as an important indicator to produce quality food. Soil quality is greatly affected by the presence of soluble salts, heavy metals and toxic compounds. In addition, soil loss by erosion, compaction, waterlogging, toxicity or deficiency of certain mineral elements and poor tillage practices lessens the area for crop production. Therefore, conservation and management of soil is crucial to augment crop production and ensure world’s food requirement. Efforts have been done to summarize all the soil problems which degrade soil quality and thus suggesting control measures and modern approaches of soil management for sustainable agriculture.