Managing the use of fertilizers will be crucial for long-term land development; for example, in the United States, it has been demonstrated that in the long term, organic agricultural methods can outperform conventional chemical farming in terms of crop yield, sustainability and profit (ibid.). While large-scale farming is, in general, identified as the main source of excessive use of fertilizers and soil degradation, land fragmentation and limited farm size can also be a source of soil degradation. In the minifundias of the Andean highlands of Latin America for instance, poor small-scale farm holders over-exploit natural resources, owing to population pressure and scarcity of suitable land (United Nations, 2011b).