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Conventional agriculture is driven by industrialization and aims to maximize efficiency. Practices include large-scale farming that specializes in monoculture and uses pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. [8] [13] Alternatives include conservation, regenerative, and organic agriculture, which can be broadly grouped as sustainable agriculture.
Base-cation saturation ratio (BCSR) is a method of interpreting soil test results that is widely used in sustainable agriculture, supported by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA) [1] and claimed to be successfully in use on over a million acres (4,000 km 2) of farmland worldwide.
Soil-conservation farming involves no-till farming, "green manures" and other soil-enhancing practices which make it hard for the soils to be equalized. Such farming methods attempt to mimic the biology of barren lands. They can revive damaged soil, minimize erosion, encourage plant growth, eliminate the use of nitrogen fertilizer or fungicide ...
The goal of sustainable agricultural practices is to decrease environmental degradation due to farming while increasing crop–and thus food–output. There are many varying strategies attempting to use sustainable farming practices in order to increase rural economic development within small-scale farming communities.
The study concludes, "Additional investments in soil organic carbon (SOC) research is needed to understand better the agricultural management practices that are most likely to sequester SOC or at least retain more net SOC stocks." [55] No-till farming reduces nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions by 40-70%, depending on rotation.
Chris Smaje explains in “A Small Farm Future" how small farms can become profitable — it merely will take a near complete reordering of our society. Smaje threw his research net wide for this ...
Cognisant of agriculture's role in the economy, the 11th five-year economic plan that runs from 2007 to 2012 recognises the importance of proper soil management in agriculture. Soil degradation through excessive and miscalculated fertiliser use because of emphasis on increased output has led to nearly two-thirds of India's farmlands to be ...
Organic farming is a multifaceted sustainable agriculture set of practices that can have a lower impact on the environment at a small scale. However, in most cases organic farming results in lower yields in terms of production per unit area. [68]