Large-Scale Soil Health Restoration: The Way Forward for Reversing Climate Change while Enhancing Food and Nutrition Security

Abstract

This paper discusses soil health and provides soil-regenerative agriculture practices that can mitigate and revers climate change; improve water management (flood, drought, water purification, etc.); and enhance food and nutrition security. Soils not only have a key role in fulfilling specific nutritional needs of plants. Soil also performs many ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration; water purification and soil contaminant reduction; climate regulation; nutrient cycling; providing a habitat for organisms; flood regulation; producing genetic resources and pharmaceuticals; and providing food, fuel and fiber. World leaders have recognized that initiatives to limit temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius (°C) compared to preindustrial levels must start now. Under the Lima–Paris Action Agenda, France launched the 4 Per 1000 Initiative with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The initiative highlights the necessary role soil plays in a comprehensive effort to fight climate change, with the objective of increasing carbon sequestration in agricultural soil—which can lead to food security by increasing soil fertility, improving adaptation capacity of agriculture to climate change, and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Research on promotion of healthy soils should be focused on four complementary themes: (i) mechanisms and assessment of carbon storage potential in soils across regions and systems; (ii) performance evaluation of best farming practices for soil carbon and impact on other greenhouse gases, food security, and other regulation and production services; (iii) innovation and its promotion by appropriate policies; and (iv) monitoring and estimating variations in soil carbon stock, especially at the farmer level.