This series of books collates review articles to provide scientists, policy makers and producers with a sound knowledge-base of current agricultural issues and to introduce novel, environmentally friendly solutions that pave the way for developing sustainable agricultural systems. The latest edition covers a disparate range of issues from phytoremediation techniques for pesticide contamination, ecological fertilization and the role of transgenic BT corn in pest management, marker-assisted breeding to tropical homegardens in Bangladesh. Each review stands alone and they vary in scope and quality and also in the extent to which they present alternative strategies for sustainability. Valuable reviews on the effect of drought stress on crop reproduction and soil microbes as biocontrol agents of plant diseases increase our understanding of important processes within farming systems but could go further in demonstrating how this knowledge could be applied to develop new approaches. Similarly, a comprehensive review of the state of art for marker-assisted breeding would benefit from discussing the implications of this biotechnology for sustainable crop production. We found of most interest the review of sustainable land use and agricultural soils that considers the temporal and spatial scale. It postulates the importance of indicators of soil quality, such as biological activity and soil organic matter and proposes close collaboration among scientists, land managers and policy makers as a way to adopt sustainable land use practises.