Absorption - The uptake of substances, usually nutrients, water, or light, by cells or tissues.

Acid soil - A soil material having a pH of less than 7.0.

Adaptation - Change in an organism resulting from the action of natural selection on variation so that the organism is fitted more perfectly for existence in its environment.

Agroclimatic region - An identification of a region on the basis of homogeneous climate, physical features, and crop types; used to determine crop calendars, forecast crop yields, and conduct drought assessments.

Aeration, soil - The process by which air in the soil is replaced by air from the atmosphere. In a well-aerated soil, the soil air is similar in composition to the atmosphere above the soil. Poorly aerated soils usually contain a much higher percentage of carbon dioxide and a correspondingly lower percentage of oxygen than the atmosphere. The rate of aeration depends largely on the volume and continuity of pores in the soil.

Agenda 21 - One of several documents emerging from the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Major issues of environment and development were examined, including poverty and standard of living.

Agribusiness - Producers and manufacturers of agricultural goods and services, such as fertilizer and farm equipment makers, food and fiber processors, wholesalers, transporters, and retail food and fiber outlets.

Agricultural economy - An economic system based primarily on crop production.

Agricultural pollution - Wastes, emissions, and discharges arising from farming activities. Causes include runoff and leaching of pesticides and fertilizers; pesticide drift and volatilization; erosion and dust from cultivation; and improper disposal of animal manure. Some agricultural pollution is point source, but much is nonpoint source, meaning that it derives from dispersed origins, e.g., blowing dust or nutrients leaching from fields.

Agricultural system - An assemblage of components which are united by some form of interaction and interdependence and which operate within a prescribed boundary to achieve a specified agricultural objective on behalf of the beneficiaries of the system.

Agro-ecosystem - An agricultural ecosystem, e.g. cereal crop.

Agroforestry - Land use system in which woody perennials are grown for wood production with agricultural crops, with or without animal production.

Albedo - Ratio of the outgoing solar radiation reflected by an object to the incoming solar radiation incident upon it

Alternative agriculture - A systematic approach to farming intended to reduce agricultural pollution, enhance sustainability, and improve efficiency and profitability. Overall, alternative agriculture emphasizes management practices that take advantage of natural processes (such as nutrient cycles, nitrogen fixation, and pest-predator relationships), improve the match between cropping patterns and agronomic practices on the one hand and the productive potential and physical characteristics of the land on the other, and make selective use of commercial fertilizer and pesticides to ensure production efficiency and conservation of soil, water, energy, and biological resources. Examples of alternative agricultural practices include use of crop rotation, animal and green manures, soil and water conserving tillage systems, such as no-till planting methods and integrated pest management. Consonant with sustainable agriculture, alternative agriculture focuses on those farming practices that go beyond traditional or conventional agriculture, though it does not exclude conventional practices that are consistent with the overall system.

Alternative crops - Alternative field crops are categorized as cereals and pseudocereals; grain legumes; oilseeds; industrial crops; and fiber crops.

Alternative energy - Energy produced from sources other than fossil fuels (solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass).

Anthropocentric ethic - The belief that only humans have value and that the environment exists solely for the benefit of humans; nature has no rights.

Bedding - The state or position of beds and layers

Best management practices (BMP) - A conservation practice or combination of practices designed to maintain agricultural productivity while reducing point- and nonpoint- source pollution.

Bioaccumulation - The accumulation of pollutants in an organism sometimes referred to as bioconcentration.

Biodegradation – The decomposition procedure of the substances with biological means (e.g. bacteria)

Biodiversity (or biological diversity) - In general, the variety and variation among plants, animals, and microorganisms, and among their ecosystems. It has 3 levels: ecosystem diversity, species diversity, and genetic (within species) diversity. The concept of maintaining biodiversity holds that civilization should preserve the greatest possible number of existing species so that a highly diverse genetic pool, which can be tapped for useful and beneficial characteristics, will be available into the future. Genetic diversity provides resources for genetic resistance to pests and diseases. In agriculture, biodiversity is a production system characterized by the presence of multiple plant and/or animal species, as contrasted with the genetic specialization of monoculture.

Biological Control - The practice of using beneficial natural organisms to attack and control harmful plant and animal pests and weeds is called biological control, or biocontrol. This can include introducing predators, parasites, and disease organisms, or releasing sterilized individuals. Biocontrol methods may be an alternative or complement to chemical pest control methods.

Biological Magnification – The aggregation of a substance that exists in abiotic environment, from the organisms of a food chain, in a way that in every successive food level the quantity of the substance in relation to the weight of the organisms increases.

Biomass - The generic term for any living matter that can be converted into usable energy through biological or chemical processes. It encompasses feedstocks such as agricultural crops and their residues, animal wastes, wood, wood residues and grasses, and municipal wastes.

Biotechnology - The use of micro-organisms, live plant or animal cells or their parts, to create new products or to carry out biological processes aimed at genetic improvement.

Carbon cycle - All parts (reservoirs) and fluxes of carbon. The cycle is usually thought of as four main reservoirs of carbon interconnected by pathways of exchange. The reservoirs are the atmosphere, terrestrial biosphere (usually includes freshwater systems), oceans, and sediments (includes fossil fuels). The annual movements of carbon, the carbon exchanges between reservoirs, occur because of various chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes. The ocean contains the largest pool of carbon near the surface of the Earth, but most of that pool is not involved with rapid exchange with the atmosphere.

Carrying capacity - The maximum population of a given organism that a particular environment can sustain. It implies a continuing yield without environmental damage. It may be notified by human intervention to improve environmental potential (e.g. by applying fertilizers to range-land and reseeding it with nutritious grasses).

Catch crop - short duration crops interposed between two major crops in a rotation, eg. the cultivation of mustard before or after cereals

Composting - The controlled biological decomposition of organic material, such as sewage sludge, animal manures, or crop residues, in the presence of air to form a humus-like material. Controlled methods of composting include mechanical mixing and aerating, ventilating the materials by dropping them through a vertical series of aerated chambers, or placing the compost in piles out in the open air and mixing it or turning it periodically.

Conservation tillage - The practice of reducing or eliminating tillage operations and leaving crop residues on the soil to prevent erosion. Any tillage and planting system that leaves at least 30% of the soil surface covered by residue after planting. Conservation tillage maintains a ground cover with less soil disturbance than traditional cultivation, thereby reducing soil loss and energy use while maintaining crop yields and quality. Conservation tillage techniques include minimum tillage, mulch tillage, ridge tillage, and no- till.

Conservation - The management of human and natural resources to provide maximum benefits over a sustained period of time. In farming, conservation entails matching cropping patterns and the productive potential and physical limitations of agricultural lands to ensure long-term sustainability of profitable production. Conservation practices focus on conserving soil, water, energy, and biological resources. Contour farming, no-till farming, and integrated pest management are typical examples of conservation practices.

Conventional agriculture - Generally used to contrast common or traditional agricultural practices featuring heavy reliance on chemical and energy inputs typical of large-scale, mechanized farms to alternative agriculture or sustainable agriculture practices. Mold-board plowing to cover stubble, routine pesticide spraying, and use of synthetic fertilizers are examples of conventional practices that contrast to alternative practices such as no-till, integrated pest management, and use of animal and green manures.

Conventional tillage - Tillage operations that plow the soil several times in order to produce a soil seedbed that is firm, granular and not powdery or cloddy, and contains some moisture.

Cost of production - The average unit cost (including purchased inputs and other expenses) of producing an agricultural commodity.

Cover crop - A close-growing crop, planted primarily as a rotation between regularly planted crops, or between trees and vines in orchards and vineyards, to protect soil from erosion and improve it between periods of regular crops.

Crop residue - That portion of a plant, such as a corn stalk, left in the field after harvest. Crop residues are measured for farmers who use conservation tillage to implement their conservation plan to meet conservation compliance requirements. These farmers are required to maintain a minimum level of crop residue to be in compliance.

Crop rotation - The growing of different crops, in recurring succession, on the same land in contrast to monoculture cropping. Rotation usually is done to replenish soil fertility and to reduce pest populations in order to increase the potential for high levels of production in future years.

Cropland - Land devoted to the production of cultivated crops. May be used to produce forage crops.

Degradation – The cause of pollution or any other environmental weathering that can have negative implications in ecological balance, the quality of life, the health of the people and the historical and cultural heritage and esthetic values.

Dehumiditation - the process to make less humid

Desertification - The process of desert expansion or formation, which may occur as a direct consequence of climatic change (e.g. shifts in the location of a major planetary pressure and wind systems), as the result of poor land use policy (e.g. overgrazing), or owing to some complex interaction of these factors (e.g. overgrazing, leading to albedo change, favouring climatic change in the form of increased dryness).

Development - A value-laden notion referring to the extent to which a society is meeting the needs of its people. It typically is defined in economic terms, but encompasses other dimensions as well.

Diversity – When referred to the living creatures is demonstrating the organization of a biosociety and it usually indicates its quality of comprising a lot of species, the abundance of which does not present great differences.

Drain - To provide channels, such as open ditches or drain tile, so that excess water can be removed by surface or by internal flow. To lose water from the soil by percolation.

Drainage - Improving the productivity of agricultural land by removing excess water from the soil by such means as ditches, drainage wells, or subsurface drainage tiles.

Ecology - The study of the relationship between organisms and their environment.

Ecosystem - A functioning community of nature that includes fauna and flora together with the chemical and physical environment with which they interact. Ecosystems vary greatly in size and characteristics. An ecosystem can be a mud puddle, a field or orchard, or a forest and provides a unit of biological study and can be a unit of management.

Edaphology - The science that deals with the influence of soils on living things, particularly plants, including man's use of land for plant growth.

Efficiency - The amount of product produced per input unit of energy, labor, or material.

Emission - Waste released or emitted to the environment. The term is commonly used in referring to discharges of gases and particles to the atmosphere, i.e., air pollutants, and also is used in referring to particles or energy released radioactively. Sometimes the term is used broadly, encompassing any pollutant discharge.

Environment - The complete range of external conditions, physics and biological, in which an organism lives. Environment includes social, cultural, and (for humans) economics and political considerations, as well as the more usually understood features such as soil, climate, and food supply.

Environmental degradation - Depletion or destruction of a potentially renewable resource such as soil.

Environmental science - The study of the environment. This may be interpreted fairly strictly as the physical environment, or may include the biological environment of an organism: or, in its widest sense, it may also consider social, cultural and other aspects of the environment.

Eutrophic - Having concentrations of nutrients optimal or nearly so for plant or animal growth. It is used to describe nutrient or soil solutions.

Extensive agriculture - Maximizing the amount of land used for agricultural production.

Extensive grazing management - Grazing management that utilizes relatively large land areas per animal and a relatively low level of labor or resources.

Farm inputs - The resources that are used in farm production, such as chemicals, equipment, feed, seed, and energy. Most farm inputs are making production costs susceptible to nonfarm economic conditions. Over time, prices of farm inputs have increased relative to commodity prices, creating what farmers describe as a cost-price squeeze. The relationship between prices paid for inputs compared to prices received for output is quantified in the parity ratio.

Fertility, soil - The status of a soil in relation to the amount and availability to plants of elements necessary for plant growth.

Fertilizer grade - The guaranteed minimum analysis, in percent, of the major plant nutrient elements contained in a fertilizer material or in a mixed fertilizer. The analysis usually gives the percentages of N, P2O5, and K2O, but proposals have been made to change the designation to the percentages of N, P, and K.

Fertilizer requirement - The quantity of certain plant nutrient elements needed, in addition to the amount supplied by the soil, to increase plant growth to a designated optimum.

Fertilizer - Any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply certain elements essential to the growth of plants mainly potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen.

Food Chain – Series of organisms through which energy is transferred, e.g. Producer (plant) ® Consumer 1 (herbivore animal) ® Consumer 2 (carnivore animal) ® Degradator (microorganism)

Forestland - Land on which the vegetation is dominated by forest or, if trees are lacking, the land bears evidence of former forest and has not been converted to other vegetation.

Grazing land management - The manipulation of the soil-plant-animal complex of the grazing land in pursuit of a desired result. The definition may be applied to specific kinds of grazing land by substituting the appropriate term, such as grassland in place of grazing land.

Grazing land - Any vegetated land that is grazed or that has the potential to be grazed by animals.

Grazing management - The manipulation of animal grazing in pursuit of a defined objective.

Grazing system - A defined, integrated combination of animal, plant, soil, and other environmental components and the grazing method(s) by which the system is managed to achieve specific results or goals.

Green manure - Plant material incorporated into the soil to improve it, while the plant material is still green.

Green revolution - Movement to increase yields by using new crop cultivars, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization.

Greenhouse effect - Process by which significant changes in the chemistry of Earth's atmosphere may enhance the natural process that warms our planet and elevates temperatures. If the effect is intensified and Earth's average temperatures change, a number of plant and animal species could be threatened with extinction. Certain gaseous components of the atmosphere, called greenhouse gases, transmit the visible portion of solar radiation but absorb specific spectral bands of thermal radiation emitted by the Earth. The theory is that terrain absorbs radiation, heats up, and emits longer wavelength thermal radiation that is prevented from escaping into space by the blanket of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. As a result, the climate warms. Because atmospheric and oceanic circulations play a central role in the climate of the Earth, improving our knowledge about their interaction becomes essential.

Groundwater - The water from wells and underground aquifers. An estimated 95% of the drinking water used in rural areas is from groundwater. Because of its use as drinking water, there is concern over contamination from leaching agricultural and industrial pollutants or leaking underground storage tanks.

Growing season - The time period, usually measured in days, between the last freeze in the spring and the first frost in the fall. Varies for crops as different plants have different freezing thresholds. It also is an important component in defining wetland areas.

Integrated Farm Management Program (IFMP) - A program that aims to assist producers in adopting resource-conserving crop rotations by protecting participants' base acreage, payment yields, and program payments.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) - A program that aims to decrease pesticide applications by teaching farmers to use a variety of alternative control techniques to capitalize on natural pest mortality. These techniques include biological controls, genetic resistance, tillage, pruning, and others. Pesticide applications are used only when preventive practices fail to keep impending crop damage from exceeding the cost of controlling the pest with a chemical.

Intensive agriculture - System to maximize output of land through use of chemicals and machinery.

Intensive grazing management - Grazing management that attempts to increase production or utilization per unit area or production per animal through a relative increase in stocking rates, forage utilization, labor, resources, or capital Intensive grazing management is not synonymous with rotational grazing. Grazing management can be intensified by substituting any one of a number of grazing methods that utilize a relatively greater amount of labor or capital resources.

Intercropping — Intercropping is the growing of two or more crops in proximity to promote interaction between them

§ Row intercropping—growing two or more crops at the same time with at least one crop planted in rows.

§ Strip intercropping—growing two or more crops together in strips wide enough to permit separate crop production using machines but close enough for the crops to interact.

§ Mixed intercropping—growing two or more crops together in no distinct row arrangement.

§ Relay intercropping—planting a second crop into a standing crop at a time when the standing crop is at its reproductive stage but before harvesting.

Irrigation water management - Limiting irrigation applications based on the water-holding capacity of the soil and the need of the crop. The water is applied at a rate and in such a manner that the crop can use it efficiently and resource losses are minimized. Irrigation efficiency is the ratio of the amount of water stored in the crop root zone compared to the amount of water applied. Water conservation has become more important as costs have risen and demands have grown for wildlife and urban uses.

Irrigation - Applying water (or wastewater) to land areas to supply the water (and sometimes nutrient) needs of plants. Techniques for irrigating include furrow irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, trickle (or drip) irrigation, and flooding.

Landscape – Every dynamic set of biotic or non-biotic factors and elements of the environment that isolated or by interacting in a particular place, constitutes a visual prosperity.

Leaching - The process by which chemicals are dissolved and transported through the soil by percolating water. Pesticides and nutrients from fertilizers or manures may leach from fields, areas of spills, or feedlots and thereby enter surface water, groundwater, or soil. Leaching from concentrated sources such as waste sites and loading areas vulnerable to spills can be prevented by paving or containment with a liner of relatively impermeable material designed to keep leachate inside a treatment pond, landfill, or a tailings disposal area. Liner materials include plastic and dense clay.

Legume - A family of plants, including many valuable food and forage species, such as pea, chickpea, bean, faba bean, soybean, peanut, clover, and alfalfa. They can convert nitrogen from the air to build up nitrogen in the soil.

'Living' soil - A healthy soil that contains living organisms. These organisms (biota) are important to the health of soil, and a gram of healthy agricultural soil can contain several million micro-organisms. Productive soil is made up of mineral particles; organic matter in the form of decaying parts of plants and animals and the waste products of living things; and hundreds of millions of micro-organisms and other living things (e.g., nematodes, arthropods, worms).

Midden - A mound or deposit containing shells, animal bones, and other refuse that indicates the site of a human settlement

Monoculture - The cultivation of a single crop, usually on a large area of land and on a commercial trading basis

Natural resources - Substances and processes used by people that they cannot create.

Nitrogen cycle - A description of the balance, changes, and nature of the nitrogen – containing compounds circulating between the atmosphere, the soil, and living matter. For plants, nitrogen fixation by soil bacteria, which renders nitrogen readily available for assimilation by the plants, is an essential and crucial part of the nitrogen cycle.

Nitrogen fixation - The process of producing nitrogen compounds by combining nitrogen from the air with other substances. The only organisms that can use nitrogen gas to make organic molecules are a few kinds of bacteria. Most nitrogen-fixing bacteria live in the soil or water, but some species live in nodules on the roots of legumes such as lucerne, peas, beans and clovers.

Nonpoint source - A diffuse source of water pollution that does not discharge through a point source or pipe, but instead flows freely across exposed natural or man-made surfaces, such as plowed fields, pasture land, construction sites and parking lots.

Nonrenewable resource - A resource that cannot be replenished.

Organic agriculture - The practice of growing crops without chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but otherwise similar to alternative agriculture.

Organic farming - Crop production systems that generally exclude the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals. To the maximum extent feasible, organic farming systems rely on crop rotations, crop residues, animal manures, legumes, green manures, off-farm organic wastes, mechanical cultivation, and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity, to supply nutrients to plants, and to control weeds and pests.

Organic fertilizer - Organic matter added to the soil to increase production, e.g., manure, plants plowed into the soil, and compost.

Organic foods - Food products produced by organic farming practices and handled or processed under organic handling and manufacturing processes as defined by several private and state organic certifying agencies.

Organic - Chemically, a compound or molecule containing carbon bound to hydrogen. Organic compounds make up all living matter. The term organic frequently is used to distinguish 'natural' products or processes from man-made 'synthetic' ones. Thus natural fertilizers include manures or rock phosphate, as opposed to fertilizers synthesized from chemical feedstocks. Likewise, organic farming and organic foods refer to the growing of food crops without the use of synthetic chemical pesticides or fertilizers; pests are controlled by cultivation techniques and the use of pesticides derived from natural sources (e.g., rotenone and pyrethrins, both from plants) and the use of natural fertilizers (e.g., manure and compost). Some consumers, alleging risks from synthetic chemicals, prefer organic food products.

Overconsumption - A situation in which some people consume resources at levels beyond their needs, often at the expense of those who cannot meet their basic needs.

Overgrazing - Grazing by animals on vegetation at a rate greater than the ability of vegetation to regenerate it self.

Overpopulation - More organisms in a population than the existing resources can support.

Parasite - An organism living in or on another organism.

Pasture - A fenced area of forage, usually improved, on which animals are grazed.

Pastureland - Land devoted to the production of indigenous or introduced forage for harvest primarily by grazing.

Pest - An organism that is detrimental to agricultural production.

Pesticide resistance - A situation in which pests are not affected by a particular pesticide. Pollution is a problem when pollutants are emitted at rates greater than the rate at which they can be recycled, absorbed, or otherwise rendered harmless. The consequences often include threats to humans and other organisms.

Pesticide - A chemical that destroys or suppresses pests. Pesticides are classified by the type of pest against which they are active: insecticides (ants, termites, etc.); herbicides (broadleaved weeds, grasses, algae); fungicides (mildew, molds, plant diseases, etc.); acaricides (mites, ticks); rodenticides (rats, gophers, ground squirrels); avicides birds); pisicides (fish); molluscicides (snails, slugs); and nematicides (nematodes or nonsegmented soil worms).

Point source - A discernible, confined and discrete conveyance including but not limited to, any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be discharged. This term does not include return flows from irrigated agriculture.

Pollution – The direct or indirect weathering of natural or chemical or biological qualities, of any ingredient in the environment, in a way that harm health, safety or prosperity of any living creature.

Predator - animal that preys on other animals as a source of food

Productivity - The amount of real output produced by input units of labor and capital.

Recycling – In wastes’ management, the term recycling is defined as the separation of a particular material from the wastes and the procedure for the production of useful objects out of it.

Resource depletion - Using a resource at a nonreplacement rate.

Resources - Things obtained from the biosphere by humans to meet their basic needs and wants.

Rio Conference - The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which took place at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June, 1992.

Risk management - The process of deciding whether and how to manage risks. Public risk management requires consideration of legal, economic, and behavioral factors, as well as environmental and human health effects of each management alternative. Management may involve regulatory and non-regulatory responses. For example, characterizing the risk to farm workers of entering a field after application of a particular pesticide is risk assessment; promulgating reentry standards is risk management.

Row crop - The rows or planting beds are far enough apart to permit the operation of machinery between them for cultural operations.

Salinization - A process by which the salt content of the soil is increased. It typically is attributed to irrigation practices and often makes land useless for crop production.

Soil conservation - The protection of the soil by careful management to prevent physical loss by erosion and to avoid chemical deterioration (i.e. to maintain soil fertility).

Soil management - A variety of practices and operations with respect to soil which aid the production of plants; normally they are planned to allow for sustained yield in the future.

Soil profile - A vertical section through all the constituent horizons of a soil, from the surface to the relatively unaltered parent material.

Soil quality (health) - Soil quality includes consideration of measures related to both productivity for crops and environmental factors.

Soil structure - The grouping of individual soil particles into secondary units of aggregates and peds; this grouping is like an internal scaffolding of the soil.

Soil - The natural, unconsolidated, mineral and organic material occurring on the surface of the earth; it is a medium for growth of plants.

Stress - A physiological condition, usually affecting behavior, produced by excessive environmental or psychological pressures.

Sustainable agriculture - The term sustainable agriculture means an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long term:

Ø Satisfy human food and fiber needs

Ø Enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends

Ø Make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural

Ø Biological cycles and controls

Ø Sustain the economic viability of farm operations

Ø Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole

Sustainable development - Economic development that takes full account of the environment consequences of economic activity and is based on the use of resources that can be replaced or renewed and therefore are not depleted.

Urban land - Areas so altered or obstructed by urban works or structures that identification of soils is not feasible.

Waste – Any substance, solid, liquid or gaseous, that is useless for the organism or the system that produces it.

Waste Management – The set of activities including collection, selection, transport, processing, reuse or final laying down of wastes in natural or technical receivers, aiming at environment protection.

Weed - A plant in a wrong place, being one that occurs opportunistically on land or in water that has been disturbed by human activity, or on cultivated land, where it competes for nutrients, water, sunlight, or other resources with cultivated plants.

Wind-break - a barrier composed of planted trees on the shores of reservoirs designed to break the velocity of the wind near their water surface in order to reduce evaporation

Wind erosion - detachment, transportation and deposition of loose topsoil by wind action, especially in dust storms in arid or semiarid regions where a protective mat of vegetation is inadequate or has been removed; Dehydration and abrasion of the soil due to the action of winds

Yield - The number of bushels (or pounds or hundredweight) that a farmer harvests per acre.