Copyright 1993, the National Academy Press. Keywords, machine extracted. Top 50 words repeated twice, next 100 once, plus phrases. Exe curve Summary The U.S. economy and the livelihood of citizens depend on soil, water, air, plants, and animals, and natural and managed ecosys- tems as fundamental resources. Agricultural production, by its very nature, has pervasive effects on all these resources.
Agricultural production takes place within farming systems.
This report focuses on the opportunities to manage farming systems in ways that protect two of these fundamental resources soil and water. Soil Quaky Protecting soil quality, like protecting air and water quality, should be a fundamental goal of national environmental policy. Pollution Prevention Preventing surface water and groundwater pollution by reducing the sources of contamination by nutrients, pesticides, sediments, salts, and trace elements should be the goal of national policies. Treatment of drinking water to remove nitrates and pesticides is expensive and in some cases ineffective. The disruption of aquatic ecosystems caused by excessive nutrients, pesticides, sediments, salts, and trace elements may be difficult to reverse at a reasonable cost or in a reasonable length of time.