Towards New Soil Management Strategies for Improving Soil Quality and Ecosystem Services in Sustainable Agriculture: Editorial Overview

Abstract

The major issues related to indiscriminate land use are overall related to topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, plant disease outbreaks, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, global vision focused on the environmental impact and use of eco-friendly strategies are increasing. The design of new agroecosystems and food systems are fundamental to make more sustainability in soil management systems by improving the release of advanced ecosystems services for farmers. Sustainable agriculture utilizes natural renewable resources in the best way due to their intrinsic features by minimizing harmful impact on the agroecosystems. Farmers should sustain or even increase the soil organic matter (SOM) content overall in depleted, semiarid and arid soils. Nutrients recycled from agro-waste into the soil using residual biomass sources should be endorsed by diversified agriculture and governmental policies in which livestock and crop production are spatially integrated. Many good agricultural practices that growers may use to promote soil quality and soil health by minimizing water use and soil pollution on farms are yet available from past years. Exploration of the natural soil biodiversity and manipulation of soil microbiota by continuous amendment with compost, biochar and digestate represents a pre-requisite to develop more efficient microbial consortia useful for soils and crops. On the other hand, more attention is proven regarding the sustainable use of useful microorganisms employed as pure inoculants in rhizosphere. Among them, plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria and biological control agents cover the major groups of tailored inoculants in order to rationalize the internal recycling of nutrients and their energy recovery, or to improve the soil quality and plant health thanks to their diversified mechanisms of action and complex interactions between SOM, microbiota and plant roots in the rhizosphere.