Abstract
For industrial agricultural nations like Australia and the USA, securing the soil resource in order to ensure ongoing sustainable production of food and fiber is a vital issue for policy makers. The soil security framework provides a useful and holistic approach for planning of soil policy. Policy settings within national boundaries at multiple levels are a key determinant of soil security. In addition to traditional government policy, field policy established and applied by farmers to their land will have direct consequences for soil security. Examples are provided of this mechanism at work at an individual farm level and across the cropping sector in Australia. Despite the centrality of soil to agriculture, Australia suffers from a policy disconnect between soil and agriculture at the national and state government levels. This is due to the long-term treatment of soil as a natural resource management issue, rather than as a key resource and determinant of agricultural productivity. This has also led to lost opportunities for soil research to drive productivity. The USA is further ahead, having established a new soil health division in 2014. The policy gap in Australia will be closed by linking the trend for digitization of agriculture with technologies for digitally mapping and managing soil.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Australian Government (2011) Senate standing committee on rural and regional affairs and transport inquiry report: climate change and the Australian agricultural sector. Available at http://www.daff.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/about/obligations/climate-change.pdf. Accessed 28 Oct 2015
Australian Government Department of Environment (2013) Land sector package. Available at http://www.environment.gov.au/cleanenergyfuture/land-sector/. Accessed 28 Oct 2015
Australian Landcare Council Secretariat (2010) Australian framework for landcare. Available at http://www.agriculture.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/natural-resources/land-salinity/framework/framework-for-landcare.pdf. Accessed 30 Oct 2015
Campbell A (2008) Managing Australia’s soils: a policy discussion paper. Prepared for the National Committee on Soil and Terrain (NCST) through the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council (NRMMC). Available at http://www.clw.csiro.au/aclep/documents/Soil-Discussion-Paper.pdf. Accessed 28 Oct 2015
Chappell A, Sanderman J, Thomas M, Read A, Leslie C (2012) The dynamics of soil redistribution and the implications for soil organic carbon accounting in agricultural south-eastern Australia. Glob Chang Biol 18(6):2081–2088, http:/dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2012.02682.x
Daly J, Anderson K, Ankeny R, Harch B, Hastings A, Rolfe J, Waterhouse R (2015) Australia’s agricultural future. Report for the Australian Council of Learned Academies. www.acola.org.au
Karoly D (2008) The ‘Hole’ truth: the role of ozone depletion in Australia’s changing climate. Conference presentation accessed 30 October. Available at https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/35fdde7e-fbed-44a7-b54d-d55bba1e2f3b/files/hole-truth-seminar.pdf
Koch A, McBratney A, Adams M, Field D, Hill R, Crawford J, Minasny B, Lal R, Abbott L, O’Donnell A, Angers D, Baldock J, Barbier E, Binkley D, Parton W, Wall DH, Bird M, Bouma J, Chenu C, Flora CB, Goulding K, Grunwald S, Hempel J, Jastrow J, Lehmann J, Lorenz K, Morgan CL, Rice CW, Whitehead D, Young I, Zimmermann M (2013) Soil security: solving the global soil crisis. Glob Policy 4:434–441
Koch A, Chappell A, Eyres M, Scott (2015) Monitor soil degradation or triage for soil security? An Australian challenge. Sustainability 7(5):4870–4892
Llewellyn RS, D’Emden FH (2010) Adoption of no-tillage cropping practices in Australian grain growing regions. Grains Research and Development Corporation, Kingston, pp 1–31, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2012.03.013
Love C (2013) Evolution of landcare in Australia: in the context of Australian government natural resource management policy and programs. Australian Landcare Council, Canberra
Marx SK, McGowan HA, Kamber BS, Knight JM, Denholm J, Zawadzki A (2014) Unprecedented wind erosion and perturbation of surface geochemistry marks the Anthropocene in Australia. J Geophys Res Earth Surf 119(1):45–61. doi:10.1002/2013JF002948
McBratney A, Field D, Koch A (2013) The dimensions of soil security. Geoderma 213:203–213
NFF (2012) Farm facts. Available at: http://www.nff.org.au/farm-facts.html. Accessed 28 Oct 2015
United States Studies Centre (2015) Soil big data and the future of agriculture. Available at: http://soilbigdata.org/about. Accessed 28 Oct 2015
USDA (2014) FY 2014 annual performance report. Available at http://www.obpa.usda.gov/perfrpt/2014usdaperfrpt.pdf. Accessed 28 Oct 2015
USDA (2015) Natural resources conservation service soils, soil health. Available at: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/soils/health/?cid=stelprdb1237522. Accessed 28 Oct 2015
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Koch, A. (2017). Soil Security for Agricultural Productivity: The Policy Disconnect and a Promising Future. In: Field, D.J., Morgan, C.L.S., McBratney, A.B. (eds) Global Soil Security. Progress in Soil Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43394-3_39
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43394-3_39
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-43393-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-43394-3
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)