Nuevos avances en el manejo y conservación de suelos y agua para una producción sostenible de alimentos bajo futuros cambios globales

Resumen del ciclo de conferencias. Marzo, 2025

Abstract

Soil and water resources, and their interactions, are the main responsible for keeping life on earth, providing food and water to an increasing population at global level. With the global changes (increase in population and development, and climate changes) the availability of cropping land and fresh water per capita are reaching critical levels in some regions and countries, making unsustainable the required food production at local and global levels. Besides the food production, the soil and water degradation derived of global changes, is increasing the risks of natural disasters like flooding, sedimentation, landslides, droughts and related effects. As a consequence of globalization, with increasing food requirements in the more populated regions and countries, mainly in urban areas, the traditional agricultural production of food, by usually small farmers, with low use of inputs and usually with small environmental impacts, has been changing to what are usually called “industrial or agroindustrial” agricultural systems, oriented to a massive food production, with strong use of inputs and energy, frequently in zones and countries different to the consumers. These agricultural systems are usually based in the displacement of small producers, and in extensive deforestations and strong land use changes Those agriculture production systems, usually leads to a growing land degradation and derived effects, affecting the economic, environmental and social sustainability of such developments. As a reaction there have been proposed different land use and management systems for agricultural, agroforestry and husbandry developments, called conservationists, agroecological, organic, regenerative, biodynamic, etc., partially based on experiences in apparently sustainable traditional agricultural practices, used in the past and still nowadays mainly by small farmers The potential generalized application of those systems, apparently sustainable, for food production and environmental protection, under specific socio-economic conditions, is critically discussed and analyzed taking into consideration the present and future food requirements of an increasing world population and development, under different social and economic conditions. There is proposed a process-based modeling approach of the water, salt and nutrients balances, under different land use and management conditions, directly or indirectly affected by the present and previewed future global changes. This is used as a methodological base to rationally evaluate, develop, select, and apply sustainable agricultural systems for food production and environmental protection, at local and global level, under different and changing social and economic conditions and scenarios.