Why has there been so much deterioration of the agricultural soil?

In agriculture, the soil is the fundamental pillar for the establishment of crops, we have to take into account that these spaces were previously natural spaces without any intervention by man and therefore all natural processes developed spontaneously. In these spaces before the intervention to transform them into agroecosystems there were natural riches, a high floristic and fauna biodiversity, so it is important to ask ourselves why has so much soil deterioration been generated in these natural spaces? in this publication we will leave our opinion about it to make known what elements interfere and how we can recover the soils in a safe way without polluting the ecosystems.

In that sense, one of the factors that has generated a deterioration of the soil is when the same de is discovered, in agricultural systems it is important to keep the soils covered being able to implement crop associations and decrease the systems with monocultures. In tropical areas such as the one we are in there is a high solar radiation and high temperatures which translates according to what is reported by some researchers to a natural degradative action on soils, logically this action is increased in the uncovered soils. This situation can cause the decrease of the soil fauna that lives in the first centimeters and those that are on the surface of the soil, evaporation increases and therefore the loss of moisture.

The soil can also be degraded by the action of man in the face of the need to look for his food and that of his family, since previously a progressive and indiscriminate logging of the forests began, which brought at the same time the burning, and coupled with it, the use of agricultural machinery for the preparation of the soil. The excessive and incorrect use of machinery and implements, which are certainly not useless as many claim, but we have to meditate when and with what intensity we do each task and do it considering the characteristics of each soil, know what we do it for, analyze the characteristics of the climate, if so, we can say that the machines and instruments are very useful and very productive, but to use them we have to have an agronomic mentality because it is not applied as a simple recipe.

On the other hand, producers have become accustomed to conventional agriculture with the use of synthetic products, which, although they have some utility, the problem lies in their excessive use. Among them are fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, among others. Using these products in high quantities can bring negative effects such as a decrease in soil biota, environmental pollution, water pollution, among other problems that generate imbalances in ecosystems.

In the same vein, the artificial degradation of soils and ecosystems acquires a greater importance than the one generated naturally, the center of the artificial degradation has been man, who has cut down the forests, has carried out indiscriminate burning, has established the monoexploitation of the soils, has been a provocateur of compaction and other mechanical, biological, physical and chemical damages that have occurred in the soils.

These different ways of acting together with others of a cultural nature applied to different crops, such as: over-tillage, deep work, excessive use of industrial chemicals, application of irrigation without consequent drainage, poor distribution of crops, crop rotation in an appropriate way and others, have been the elements that together with natural causes have generated the profound deterioration that currently exists in soils.

Dear readers, the important thing is to know how to treat the soil and that is why we can provide organic matter that is the food of soil life, use machinery very carefully, spending on the field as little as possible, apply fertilizers in everything natural possible to nourish the soil and microorganisms, in short, develop agroecological systems as diversified as possible.