"Sustainable soil management in the Eurasian region" provides a detailed overview of the implementation of sustainable soil management practices (SSM) in the Eurasian sub-region and directly contributes to the FAO Strategic Framework Objectives. This publication was prepared in the framework of the Eurasian Soil Partnership together with the Eurasian Centre for Food Security (ECFS) of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. It corresponds to the first collection of SSM practices applied in Eurasian countries.

Sustainable soil management is the only way to conserve soils as an essential component of the natural capital, providing not only crops and forage, but also many essential ecosystem services that allow life on Earth.

In the Eurasian region, despite of the high availability of land resources, the problems of rational soil use are unusually acute. Two fundamentally different mechanisms of land and soil degradation are converging on its territory: the first is associated with low technological level of farming, and the second with excessive pressure from high-tech cultivation and abundant use of chemicals in agriculture.

Notwithstanding the huge diversity of natural conditions and agricultural specialization across the Eurasian vast landscape (which covers approximately one sixth of the global surface), this book provides, in broad strokes, the most general information on SSM in each country and in its natural-territorial units. Obviously, the recommendations made will have to be put into practice firstly at national and local levels. However, the hope is that this publication can provide a common basis for the conservation and protection of soil resources, which are the basis of our civilization.

Download the publication here (soon available)