mortiz085

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) in the USA, assembled in 1980 a high-powered Task Force composed of 24 scientists (chaired by S.R. Aldrich) with expertise in agricultural economics, agronomy, animal science, dairy science, entomology, food science, horticulture, soil science, veterinary medicine and others to look into the similarities and differences between organic and conventional farming. The Task Force report, which remains very relevant to the current debate surrounding organic and conventional agriculture, was officially published as CAST Report No. 84 "Organic and Conventional Farming Compared" in October 1980. Some of the interesting highlights of the report are: 1. Conventional and organic farming have much in common. They differ principally in the use of modern chemical technology. Conventional farmers use commercial inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, animal feed additives) to increase productivity while organic farmers prefer to use natura...

Below is my short article which appeared in the IUSS Bulletin 117 (Nov 2010) and 118 (June 2011) under the title "Favorite Soil Science Books." Soil science is a rapidly growing ecological earth science. Consequently, the number of books on the subject has greatly increased in the last two decades. So to choose my top three soil science books, I thought of this criterion: the book must have been very useful to me when I was a student and it is still useful now in my research and teaching activities as a professor of soil science. The criterion automatically disqualifies some very good books that I used as a student but for various reasons I seldom or do not use them today as well as some outstanding soil science books published in recent years but were not yet available during my student days. My first choice is the Properties and Management of Soils in the Tropics by Pedro A. Sanchez published in 1976 by John Wiley and Sons. It discusses in a simple but in-depth manner t...