SOIL — THE RESOURCE BASE FOR SURVIVAL

Abstract

Ethiopia faces the challenges of improving the quality of life of its peoples. The tasks involved are varied and huge. They involve eradicating mass poverty, controlling unemployment, achieving and maintaining high income growth reducing the vast social and economic inequalities as well as achieving a measure of scientific and technological independence, etc... The source of development can be traced to a variety of factors and to make agriculture and its growth sustainable to fuel economic growth in an essentially agriculture-based society like Ethiopia, is a formidable and multidimensional challenge. Yet, any strategy for the protection, conservation and sustainable utilization of natural resources including that aimed at the attainment of self-reliance in crop and livestock production must include, among others, research and development (R&D) plans for soil resources. This encompasses such diverse components that an integrative research which links all levels is required for a longterm sustainable use of such vital resource. Research and development therefore should inherently address complex factors and interactions among such factors relevant for resources conservation and sustainable utilization. Such a challenge could be overwhelming when comprehensiveness is sought such that the efforts of several national and international institutions had to be streamlined. This is necessary because the high number of individuals and correlated complex R & D issues prevent any single institution from formulating and successfully executing a blanket programme to be able to exploit the comparative advantages of partner institutions for the attainment of critical mass to make agriculture and its development sustainable in the shortest time possible. This,, then, should be the cardinal moto of the* Soil Science Society whose members are the sum total of the various agricultural institutions in the country. Cognizance need to be taken by the Society that faced with the urgent need to increasing agricultural output there is the risk that this will be done at the expense of the productivity and sustainability of the resources base and environment where there is a hierarchy of interlocked subsystems of soils related resources utilization. This encompasses diverse components as: (1) the intimate relationship between plants and the soil, or between crops and domestic animals, including energy and nutrient flows among them; (2) relationships between land facets within ecological zones; (3) economic interactions at the farms, and no less important; (4) the policy environment within a given political framework. Sustainability at any one level may depend on events occurring at other levels. I am, therefore, confident that such considerations would be adequately addressed by the Society during its current deliberation and in the years ahead.