Launch of the International Network on Soil Fertility and Fertilizers (INSOILFER)
Background
Food insecurity is one of the great challenges of our times directly affecting 828 million people worldwide in pre-pandemic COVID19 (in 2021) (FAO et al., 2022). After the pandemic, 150 million more people suffering from hunger were reported (Poch et al., 2020; FAO et al., 2022). Food insecurity is a multifactorial problem caused by interactive factors such as poverty, marginalization, migration, war, water scarcity and global climate change. One of the main factors driving and aggravating food insecurity is the degradation of one third of the world's agricultural soils (FAO, 2017). Considering that soils produce more than 95 percent of the food we eat, the conservation of soil health and fertility should be one of the guiding principles in food insecurity eradication plans (FAO and ITPS, 2023).
Preserving the health and fertility of soils is therefore a prerequisite for achieving food security and it is simultaneously part of the solution to the problem (FAO and ITPS, 2023). However, the preservation of soil health and fertility is not an easy task with the prevailing approach of agri-food systems based on low crop diversity, high-yield objectives and high rates of mineral fertilizer applications, frequently overlooking nutritional quality and the contribution to the emission of greenhouse gases. In contrast, other regions of the world face fertilizer shortages or inaccessibility. These problems have been greatly exacerbated by the current global fertilizer crisis resulting from a 30 percent increase in prices and more than 100 percent in some cases (World Bank Group, 2022). In addition to the increase of prices, other factors such as post COVID-19 and war have led to an acute mineral fertilizer crisis.
FAO’s Global Soil Partnership organized the Global Symposium on Soils for Nutrition (GSOIL4N) in 2022 in order to review the state of the art on the science-policy interphase of soil fertility and its impact on human nutrition. Sustainable soil management, fertilizers use efficiency, technological innovations and nature and bio-based solutions represent a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and climate change mitigation option that can support the sustainable use of nutrients for crop production. As reported in the Outcome Document of the GSOIL4N (FAO, 2023), one of the main recommendations was the establishment of the International Network on Soil Fertility and Fertilizers (INSOILFER) under the umbrella of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP).
The International Network on Soil Fertility and Fertilizers (INSOILFER) aims to address nutrient imbalances and promote the adoption of soils for nutrition concept for making soils healthy and fertile by 2030 as a contribution to the transformation of agrifood systems. The network will foster the adoption and implementation of sustainable soil management, avoiding the underuse, misuse and overuse of fertilizers, and reducing the environmental and health impacts of their use. INSOILFER will bring stakeholders working on the technical aspects of soil fertility and fertilizers together for implementing the recommendations of the GSOIL4N in the framework of the International Code of Conduct for the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers (Fertilizer Code) (FAO, 2019) and as an important vehicle for the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management(FAO, 2017).