Pedotechnique application and soil security in intensive viticulture: an (im)possible link!

Abstract

Since ancient times Man and Soil have experienced interwoven links. Nowadays soil scientists continue to stress such links highlighting the importance of soil to provide man’s growing demand for food, water and energy, and also the soil’s im- portance in providing ecosystem services that affect climate change, human health and biodiversity. In soil management for agricultural purposes, pedotechniques to tailor soils suita- ble for table grapes cultivation in large-scale farming are used to get substantial fi- nancial returns. However, farmers in tailoring soils for high income crops, fre- quently do not take into account the fundamental objective of the pedotechnique, i. e. to meet the needs of man, avoiding any undesirable environmental consequences that may occur during handling of earthy materials. Indeed, we should consider that any human intervention on the environment, could originate new soilscapes and new soils whose security should be verified. In this note, we report on an emblematic case study of pedotechniques application in Sicily (Italy). After stressing the threats to soil security derived by the presence of anthropogenically tailored soils for table grapes cultivation, we assess their eco- nomic sustainability, taking into consideration only the internal factors and exclud- ing the external economic contributions that are allocated to social sustainability. To evaluate the effectiveness of the financial investment, results have been com- pared with profitability data related to traditional crops without pedotechniques ap- plication. Results highlight that the transformation of the soilscape, from one hand, allows for considerable investment costs, on the other hand, the highest productivi- ty and the consequent higher profitability of the cultivation, compared to the con- ventional crops, allow to amortize the startup costs. We cannot ignore that this transformation could trigger potentially a considerable decrease in quality of the environment and in pedodiversity.