Production and environmental parameters of agricultural soils in Slovakia
Jozef Vilcek
University of Presov, Slovakia
: J Plant Physiol Pathol
Abstract
Mainly due to stronger pressures on agricultural land loss, it is necessary to inform the general public about the irreplaceable status and importance of soil in the Earth's ecosystems. Nowadays, it is more than obvious that land, in addition to production functions, provides a whole range of other tasks that are necessary for life conservation. Although the situation in land use and protection in Slovakia is relatively good, it is important, especially for the new generations, at least to keep the current state of soils, both in quantity and quality. The agricultural land of Slovakia is currently able to feed its inhabitants, and even a part of it can be used for nonfood purposes. It does not mean, however, that such land is some free capital with which we can gamble in the future. Here too, the rules of good agricultural practice for soil fertility must be applied. The aim of this paper is to quantify and analyze the potential of agricultural land in Slovakia, both in terms of their sufficiency as well as production, energy, economic and environmental parameters. Correlation of environmental parameters with the map of the soil production potential is very strong and the average value (weighted average) of environmental indexes of Slovak soils (55.3 points) is very similar to the average value of the soil production potential (53.9 points). The value of agricultural soil ability to meet ecological functions is 1.42 €.m-2 (production functions 0.13 €).
Biography
Jozef Vilcek is the Professor at the Department of Geography and Applied Geoinformatics, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences of University of Presov in Presov. Professionally he focuses on the pedology and geoecology. He is a member of Slovak Accreditation Commission - the advisory body of the SR Government, the scientific grant agency - Commission for Earth Sciences, Slovak academy of Agricultural Sciences and others institutions. Outside of the university, he is the head of the regional department of Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute in Presov.
E-mail: j.vilcek@vupop.sk
