1. Agricultural Land Loss
[By: Your Name Here]

2. A Brief Description Increasing world's population. Urbanization.
Migration of small farmers.
Residential development.
Soil erosion.
Less fertile land.
The progressively increasing world's population is one of the major cause of loss of agricultural lands.
The urbanization and development of cities also caused loss of agricultural land as cities consume huge tracts of farmland throughout the world.
With rapid modernization of urban life, migration of small farmers from the rural to the urban areas became irresistible. Farmer parents strive to let their children take different professions and encourage migration to cities for better life conditions especially because the revenue from agricultural land has decreased and farming has become less profitable .
Gross effect of different factors that affected farmlands altered ecological system, which caused further damage with inevitable soil erosion also became one of the important causes of loss of agricultural land.
Improper farming practice also caused land degradation which altered its natural fertility which makes production less without an intensive use of chemicals.
Loss of agricultural lands one of terrestrial challenge that can turn into a serious problem as food production will be greatly affected by reduction of the agricultural lands and agricultural economy will be faltered if no sustainment plan will be implemented.

3. Management and Sustainment Plan
Research on facts and significance of the issue.
Schedule presentation with the community participation.
Improve farming situations.
More energy use
Expanding irrigation areas
Use of more fertilizers
High yield production
Loss of agricultural land is a great and indeed a difficult challenge that sustainment plan could be difficult.
The modernization of technologies made rural development unstoppable. With social upgrading, new generation prefer to live a life out of farming scheme. Despite, any foreseeable difficulties, agricultural lands are very significant for resource of survival needs.
A sustainment plan still has to be devised and has to involve the government and the entire population concerned.
Awareness and education of the community involved on the resource challenge faced is the first and important task to be done. Thus an intensive research has to be done on the facts and significance of the issue.
All of the information gathered has to be disseminated to the community by arranging a presentation.
Plan to conserve agricultural soil must be well thought which implementation may be for long term application.
Increase in the use of energy ,expanding irrigation areas, and use of more fertilizers including organic fertilizers are some ways that can help the soil productivity. Technologies for high yielding production needs to be implemented as needed as well.

4. Management and Sustainment Plan
Plan a soil conservation-oriented land use.
Avoid land pollution.
Minimize chemical and toxic wastes deposits.
Crop rotation.
address soil erosion.
Collaborate plans with government.
Physical and chemical destruction of agricultural lands is one of the reasons of losing the land. Looking at these aspects and addressing these issues should be well planned as part of sustainment plan.
Aside from the well known air and water pollution, land pollution can also cause destruction of farm lands.
The use of certain chemicals and toxic wastes can be deposited in the soil which can make the acid highly acidic which can make the land less suitable for farming.
Crop rotation is one natural way of helping the land to sustain fertility and productivity.
As soil erosion is one of the causes of loss of agricultural lands, a plan that will help to minimize soil erosion such as assuming a cropping system along with conservation tillage practices such as no-till, strip-till, and ridge-till has to be considered. Conservation methods such as maintaining a permanent surface cover on the soil surface with pasture or meadow and plant residue management and of course including tree planting scheme has to be looked upon.
Without government collaboration, a plan may not be feasible thus there must be a good and efficient communication with the government to implement attractive incentives for farmers and with a promising agricultural areas revenue improvement. A profitable agricultural land will not lead the farmers to think of selling their areas thus will minimize transformation of agricultural lands. With more profitable options in the area, migration to cities will be lessened.

5. Challenges on the Sustainment Plan
Inevitable urban development.
Depreciating revenue from agricultural lands.
Unstoppable farmer migration to urban areas
Development of complicated problems from modern technologies.
Urban development which has association with growing population is unstoppable demanding more wider areas transforming agricultural areas. With attractive price offers, agricultural land owners are easily convinced on selling their agricultural land which apparently became more profitable than farming.
The depreciating revenue from agricultural lands and a less profitable farming made farmers to be less interested in farming and resort to any other kind of jobs. With technological advances far ahead in the cities, there has been growing migration of people from rural area to urban areas. Many farmers sold or abandoned their farm areas and seek city life. Younger generation strive to have better professions far from farming and live with a more decent jobs. This change in perspective is highly associated with the current social changes which made city life more attractive and promising with more opportunities.
In an attempt to make farm production more attractive the use of high yielding varieties and application of modern technologies can possibly create more problems including more soil erosion, further lowering of soil fertility and soil organic matter loss . This makes farming to need more intensive work, increase the production cost tremendously which can be discouraging as the result will remain a less profitable production.

6. Challenges on the Sustainment Plan
In coordination with government:
Enforce policies on farmland preservation.
Discourage rural development within the Agricultural Wedge.
Limit non-agricultural uses of farm land areas.
Strengthen functions of rural centers as the focus of activity for the countryside around.
Continue agriculture as the preferred use in the Agricultural Wedge.
Policies on farmland preservation are highly needed to keep the agricultural lands.
Making the agricultural areas suitable and desirable with facilities similar to those found in the cities will encourage the population to stay where they are with the chance to experience life with advanced facilities.
Limiting and discouraging agricultural lands use for other purposes will greatly help in preserving agricultural lands.
Strong encouragement on agriculture using technological advances will be providing more attraction to practice farming with improved production and farming conditions.

7. References
Adams, N. (September 15,1990). Forum: The case against organic farming - Farming with chemicals may be best for wildlife. Retrieved July 04, 2008 from New Scientist Website:
Maine State Planning Office. Agricultural Land Loss. Retrieved July 04,2008 from