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Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics pp 1–7Cite as

Soil and Agriculture

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Introduction

Soil is a key component to any successful agricultural operation, serving as a growth medium for plants and providing water and essential nutrients. It is also a highly precious commodity that can be quickly degraded but takes a very long time to form. Soil formation depends on five important factors: climate, living organisms, topography, parent materials, and time (Jenny 1941). Time is the controlling factor for all the other variables, as it allows for parent materials to weather and organisms to further modify those materials into soil. It often takes thousands of years for a soil to reach its maturity because of the slow processes of physical and chemical weathering of a given parent material. For example, soils that form along rivers and streams are sediments deposited as a result of multiple flood events over time. Each flood event may only deposit a centimeter or two of sediment at a time, therefore potentially requiring hundreds of flood events to have enough...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

    Sarah Smith

  2. Department of Geography, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

    Courtney M. Gallaher

Authors
  1. Sarah Smith
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  2. Courtney M. Gallaher
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarah Smith .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Michigan State University Dept. Philosophy, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

    Paul B. Thompson

  2. University of North Texas Dept. Philosophy & Religion Studies, Denton, Texas, USA

    David M. Kaplan

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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Smith, S., Gallaher, C.M. (2016). Soil and Agriculture. In: Thompson, P., Kaplan, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_539-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_539-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6167-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities

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