Poor soils make poor people and poor people make the soil worse

Throughout the world there is a strong evidence to support the link between poverty and soil conditions. In subsistence agriculture the wealth of people on low fertility sandy soils is much lower than those living on rich volcanic soils. But there are great differences between regions in the world and this talk focuses on historical developments in soil research in tropical and temperate regions. One-third of the soils of the world are situated in the tropics and as such support more than three-quarters of the world population, yet more is known about the soil resources of the temperate regions than these important soils of the topics. Since the Second World War, soil research has immensely contributed to crop production increases in the temperate regions and the discipline has greatly benefited from new instrumentation and developments in other sciences. Soil research in tropical regions started later and its scope has not changed much: the feeding of the growing population, land degradation and nutrient management remain important research themes. The amount of research in environmental protection, soil contamination and ecosystem health is relatively limited. Mineral surpluses are a major concern in many temperate soils under agriculture whereas the increase of soil fertility is an important research topic in many tropical regions. The impact of soil research on poverty alleviation, crop production or rural livelihoods will be discussed. 1 ISRIC – World Soil Information, P.O. Box 353, 6700 AJ Wageningen, The Netherlands, E-mail: alfred.hartemink@