Human beings, like microorganisms, plants and animals, need sufficient food to survive. But beyond the provision of basic energy and nutrients, food must also be safe in order to prevent disease and the intake of harmful toxic substances.
, but also silently provide us with almost all ecosystem services and functions that enable life to exist on Earth. This thin skin of the planet, on which humans stand up every day, is also responsible for cleaning, filtering and storing water; recycling nutrients; regulating the climate and floods; and removing carbon dioxide and other gases from the atmosphere, all while hosting about a quarter of the animal species on Earth.
Balancing the many ecosystem services provided by soil with the need for enhanced food production is the central challenge of sustainable soil management.
Today we celebrate the ninth United Nations World Soil Day under the theme “Soils, Where Food Begins”. This celebration aims to raise awareness of the importance of healthy soils, but also to engage citizens around the world to stand up for soils.
Advocacy of soils is more important than ever given that we are facing a food and fertilizer crisis due to the challenges of post-COVID-19 recovery, ongoing conflicts and the ever-increasing evidence of the impact of climate change. While food security is a global goal that requires consideration of multiple factors, soil fertility status is the fundamental building block on which all agricultural production systems are built. And healthy and well-nourished soils are central to achieving it.
One of the main dimensions of food security is sufficient food production, which can be supported by improving inherent soil fertility. Our concept of fertility has broadened with time and is now recognized as the ability of soil to support plant growth by providing not only the essential nutrients, but also the adequate chemical, physical and biological conditions as a habitat for plant growth.
Soils have the extraordinary capacity to store, transform and recycle nutrients that we all need to survive, allowing life to continue. Of the 18 nutrients essential to plants, 15 are supplied by soils—if they are healthy. A lack of basic nutrients, including macro- and micronutrients, leads to the underdevelopment of plants and reduced crop yields and nutritional value. The chronic lack of micronutrients—those derived from nutrient-deficient soils and crops—causes .
A key challenge in achieving balanced soil fertility is to find a sustainable role for fertilizers in plant production. The overuse and misuse of fertilizers lead to harmful nutrient surpluses in agricultural fields and cause a number of environmental problems, including the deterioration of water quality and the eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems, exacerbation of climate change due to increased release of greenhouse gases and soil pollution, and crop failure. In other parts of the world, undersupply of nutrients causes plants to mine existing nutrients, leading to lower yields and micronutrient deficiencies in crops.
So yes, our soils are in danger, mostly because of human activities. One third of global soils are already degraded, and the trend is rising because of 10 threats: soil erosion by wind, water and tillage, loss of soil organic carbon, nutrient mismanagement, salinization and sodification, soil pollution, compaction, acidification, loss of soil biodiversity, and soil sealing and waterlogging. The severity of the threats differs across regions. ; ; ; ; ; and .
Soils have become one of the world’s most vulnerable resources. Their degradation leads to poverty?by?triggering?rural to urban migration.?Food security,?climate change?adaptation and even sustainable development?are?jeopardized?when?people are forced to?flee?because they cannot cultivate their land for food or income.??
Several of these threats are intimately associated with human-induced climate change. Soils constitute the largest terrestrial carbon pool and play a crucial role in the global carbon balance by regulating dynamic biogeochemical processes and the exchange of greenhouse gases (GHGs) with the atmosphere. The , which is nearly twice the quantity of atmospheric carbon (840 billion tonnes) and over twice as much as is stored in vegetation (650 billion tonnes).
If soils are managed sustainably, this organic carbon will continue to be stored in the soil and will help to both build resilience and further adaptation to climate change. If unsustainably managed, soils will instead accelerate climate change by releasing not only carbon dioxide but even more potent greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide and methane.
The re-carbonization of global soils constitutes a viable option to address the global challenges of this time. Sustainably managed soils have the potential to offset as much as 34 per cent of global agricultural GHG emissions annually, sequestering up to 0.56 billion tonnes of carbon—or 2.05 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Farmers can be agents of change if they adopt good practices. However, they cannot be charged with this task alone, as there should be provision of incentives and an enabling environment for this to happen. We need to support farmers to adopt sustainable soil management practices that are adapted to the country and are the result of a combination of scientific and local knowledge. This will restore the balance and harmony of our soils.
Investing in healthy soils brings many benefits, including these climate-related ones. It will increase productivity, healthier food production, water storage and biodiversity conservation, making agrifood systems more sustainable and resilient.
It is an everyday job to raise the voice of soils, our silent ally. But we are optimistic, as there are now many global, regional and national initiatives taking place to safeguard this important resource and, ideally, enhance soil health.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been taking the lead on the promotion of sustainable soil management through its . Members and multiple stakeholders work together as a coalition of the willing for soils. Actions vary from normative tools, capacity development, generating soil information, developing activities on the ground, raising awareness and advocacy. Many recent synthesis studies have demonstrated that the sustainable management techniques that we have in place are successful, preventing further degradation and even regenerating soil health.
FAO is determined to catalyse this momentum and ensure that the sustainable management of soils grows through time. It is time to scale up sustainable practices and increase investments in sustainable soil management.
We all need it now—more than ever—if we want our children to continue to enjoy the extraordinary array of services that soils provide to us. After all, soils are inherent to our origin, and as such, healthy soils should constitute the legacy of our future.
Happy World Soil Day!
To find out more about World Soil Day and to register for official events, please visit?.
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