Print This PageConservation Tillage Brochure
As the human race enters the 21st century, we face challenges that are unprecedented in the history of mankind.
Finite and dwindling energy resources. A fast-growing world population that will inevitably outstrip our capacity to produce enough food to meet our needs. Rapidly eroding soils that fill our waterways with sediment. Fresh water supplies that are limited but facing increased demand. The threat of global warming. Deteriorating air quality.
Soil, energy, food, fiber, water and air–these things are collectively the basics of life on which we depend. But yet, in many ways, mankind has come to take these basics for granted.
It is an indisputable fact that soil is the crucial element that sustains us; from it springs plant life and, therefore, animal life. Without soil, there would be no life at all. Yet our soils around the world are being depleted at an alarming rate. They are worn out by the cumulative effects of tillage, erosion, weather and abuse by mankind. In many parts of the world, there are less than six inches of topsoil remaining. It takes a millennium or two to create an inch of topsoil, and we’re losing this precious resource much faster than it can ever be replaced. When our fertile topsoil is gone, how will mankind and civilization survive?
Fortunately, there are major changes under way in modern agriculture that offer hope for reversing the slow, steady march of soil erosion and depletion. New farming methods are already addressing this problem, as well as offering meaningful solutions to other environmental challenges.
These solutions include cleaning up our waterways, making maximum use of available water, conserving valuable fuel, reducing the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere and ensuring there will be plenty of food to sustain people around the world for centuries to come.
It's an interesting story, and one that is vitally important to you and me, our children and our children's children.
