Soil Functional Zone Management: The Outlook Going Forward.

Soil functional zone management (SFZM) has high potential to contribute to sustainable intensification of agriculture. If broadly adapted, SFZM appears to be able to expand temperate-zone growing seasons, which then enables more effective cover cropping and more sustainable harvest of crop residues. Cover cropping enables cultivation of winter-annual crops and and increases the level of crop residue harvest; as well it increases water storage capacity across landscapes. Thus SFZM may contribute to increased production of food, water, and biomass feedstocks for renewable energy and other purposes.  However, achieving such sustainable intensification would be a complex project, requiring cooperation and learning among a wide range of societal sectors. Such cooperation and learning will, in turn, require new methods and approaches. As our SFZM work goes forward, we expect to be increasingly involved in these new methods and approaches, which are likely to involve applications of design thinking to development of sustainably-intensified agricultural landscapes and watersheds.