engleski

The role of soil suitability assessment system for sustainable food production

Because of the accelerated growth of the world’s population over the last 50 years, global food production has increased by 145%, ~70% of which is a result of higher yields of agricultural crops. Higher yields require more energy and natural resources, which reduces the ability of the biosphere to maintain sufficient food production while keeping soil, water and air quality but also to regulate climate. Soil suitability assessment is the basic precondition for sustainable land management (SLM) and a strategic component of sustainable development. Agriculture in Croatia is still primary branch of industry. Because of that, the quality of life and opportunities for economic development of agricultural producers are directly related to the size of the production areas and their quality. Soil suitability management system imposes as an optimal solution for land preservation and growth of its ecological functions. It can be used as a sort of land monitoring that can provide insight into agricultural land management through identifying the symptoms of unsustainable land management, such as soil degradation, water quality decline, loss of biodiversity, spread of plant disease and others. Gathered experience from implementing soil suitability assessment system in the area of Osijek-Baranja County from 2003 to 2015 have shown that it is an important precondition for sustainable land management. The analysis of the 26914 soil samples, that are stored in the interpretation base (iBase), shows that the agricultural land of the County is on average classified as a moderately suitable (S2) for crop production. According to the productivity indicators of average corn yield of 9.65 t ha-1 it is necessary to incorporate 173 kg ha-1 N, 94 kg ha-1 P2 O5 and 102 kg ha-1 K2 O in soil.

soil suitability assessment system ; sustainable land management ; Osijek-Baranja County

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