A way out of problematic crop management practices: Diving into Crop Rotation Strategy for Sustainable Agriculture
The global use of fertilizers has increased from 27.4 million metric tons Magnesium (Mg) per year in 1960 to 273.4 Mg in 2020. The utilization of inorganic fertilizers at high doses has left the global soils at risk of degradation, affecting both farm yields and the surrounding water, air, and biodiversity. This article explores why sustainable practices like crop rotation matter more than ever.
Problems With Current Soil Nutrient Management
The alarm on global fertiliser usage remains. Global fertiliser use has increased by 3 to 4 times since the 1960s (Heffers et al., 2017). The increased fertilizer usage in recent decades is due to (Ali, 2025):
- Increased food demand,
- reduced productivity under climate change,
- increased livestock feed demand.
However, fertiliser usage leads to environmental degradation, including impacts on water, soil, air, and climate change (Li and Wu, 2008). This brings us to the moment to rethink soil nutrient management decisions in the light of the current environmental problems and climate change.
Why must we rethink our choices in soil management?
Unsustainable farm management practices, particularly excessive application of chemical fertilisers lead to the following problems in the soil:
- Reduced humus or organic matter
- Reduced or increased soil Ph impacting soil physical structure
- Impacts on soil microbiome and chemical balance
The long-term use of chemical nutrient management leads to soil degradation and human health impacts due to the accumulation of inorganic chemicals in food (Jote 2023). Additionally, soil lies in the nexus with water and air. Deterioration of soil leads to detrimental effects on the water and air. For instance, the impact of chemical leaching into water bodies leads to groundwater contamination and eutrophication (Lal et al., 2017). Given the impacts of excessive use of chemical fertilisers on the soil, air, water, and biodiversity, a rethink in soil management practices is needed.
Sustainable Soil Nutrient Management
The current global demand for food has led to intensive crop systems, under which the nutrients of the soil are being depleted (Amundson, 2015). Additionally, the soil organic carbon in agrarian soils worldwide has been significantly reduced, impacting microbial activity (Paustian et al., 2016). Solutions remain where intense inorganic fertilisers can be dismissed from agricultural lands and ensure productivity for farm owners and businesses through sustainable soil management. The adoption of physical agronomic practices such as:
- Minimal Tillage
- Crop Rotation
- Organic Manure
lead to the boosting of soil productivity, and ensure soil health without environmental degradation.
Why Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is the growing series of different crops during different seasons over a period of time on an agricultural land. Crop Rotation is a widely mentioned practice to integrate one of the principles of regenerative agriculture, which is maximising biodiversity (Regenerative Agriculture: Myths, Facts, and Why Europe Needs It | betterSoil). Additionally, crop rotation provides the following benefits for cropping systems globally:
- Increases crop biodiversity
- Increases Nutrient Cycling/ Fixation
- Breaks pest-disease cycles (Li et al., 2025)
While the current agricultural regime is set to move towards regenerative agriculture, crop rotation is a significant opportunity to enhance both soil health, yield productivity, and soil biodiversity.
Soil Microbiome boost with Crop Rotation:
The Soil Microbiome is boosted with crop rotation agree several researchers. It is found that the application of crop rotation in the cropping system has (Nannipieri et al., 2023)
- Increased carbon content
- Increased microbial communities
- Increased soil faunal diversity
Adoption of crop rotation further benefits soil health through enrichment of soil carbon content and a healthy microbiome. Overall, Crop roatation is a practice to be considered to shift the current problematic agricultural practices towards a sustainable transition for cropping systems.
Crop Rotation with betterSoil
BetterSoil has adopted to provide crop rotation services to farmers through the betterSoil Farm Assistant application. The crop rotation services provided within the betterSoil through the incorporation of
- Farmer goals
- Crop rotation principles
- Satellite data
Through the incorporation of BetterSoil’s farm assistant, the farming systems can adopt sustainable agriculture practices through simplification of the planning for the cropping regime, and help farms worldwide. Please stay in touch for more information on BetterSoil’s Farm Assistant and the importance of digital application in cropping systems in our upcoming blog articles.
References:
Ali, A.M., 2025. Environmental pollution and climate change implications of agricultural fertilizer use. In Agricultural nutrient pollution and climate change: Challenges and opportunities (pp. 1–28). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Amundson, R., Berhe, A.A., Hopmans, J.W., Olson, C., Sztein, A.E. and Sparks, D.L., 2015. Soil and human security in the 21st century. Science, 348(6235), p.1261071.
Heffer, P., Gruère, A. and Roberts, T., 2013. Assessment of fertilizer use by crop at the global level. Paris: International Fertilizer Industry Association.
Jote, C.A., 2023. The impacts of using inorganic chemical fertilizers on the environment and human health. Organic and Medicinal Chemistry International Journal, 13(3), p.555864.
Lal, R., Mohtar, R.H., Assi, A.T., Ray, R., Baybil, H. and Jahn, M., 2017. Soil as a basic nexus tool: soils at the center of the food–energy–water nexus. Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports, 4(3), pp.117–129.
Li, C., Shi, L., Wang, K., Liu, B., Liao, J., An, Z. and Chang, S.X., 2025. Crop rotation differentially increases soil bacterial and fungal diversities in global croplands: a meta-analysis. Nature Communications, 16(1), p.11686.
Li, D.P. and Wu, Z.J., 2008. Impact of chemical fertilizers application on soil ecological environment. Ying yong sheng tai xue bao (The Journal of Applied Ecology), 19(5), pp.1158–1165.
Nannipieri, P., Hannula, S.E., Pietramellara, G., Schloter, M., Sizmur, T. and Pathan, S.I., 2023. Legacy effects of rhizodeposits on soil microbiomes: a perspective. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 184, 109107.
Paustian, K., Lehmann, J., Ogle, S., Reay, D., Robertson, G.P. and Smith, P., 2016. Climate-smart soils. Nature, 532(7597), pp.49-57.