The time is ripe to step up and expand current efforts to understand the great interlocking systems of air, water, and minerals, that nourish the Earth. This is essential for a reliable assessment of the opportunities for enhancing food production on land and sea. Moreover, without vigorous action towards that goal, nations will be seriously handicapped in trying to cope with proven and suspected threats to ecosystems, and to human health and welfare, resulting from alterations in the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, and related materials.