Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : food security and soil quality / R. Lal and B.A. Stewart -- Managing soils to address global issues of the twenty-first century / R. Lal -- Farming systems and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa / W.A. Payne -- Assessment of land degradation, its possible causes and threat to food security in Sub-Saharan Africa / P.L.G. Vlek, Q.B. Le, and L. Tamene -- Crop productivity, fertilizer use, and soil quality in China / M. Fan ... [et al.] -- The role of fertilizers in food production / A. Roy -- Conservation agriculture, improving soil quality for sustainable production systems? / N. Verhulst ... [et al.] -- Soil quality management in Brazil / C.E. Cerri ... [et al.] -- Organic matter knowledge and management in soils of the tropics related to ecosystem services / C. Feller ... [et al.] -- Temporal changes in productivity of agricultural systems in Punjab, India and Ohio, USA / A. Dubey and R. Lal -- Soil quality and ethics : the human dimension / R. Lal -- Comprehensive management of nutrients in dryland soils of China for sustainable agriculture / S.-X. Li and Z.-H. Wang.