Soils
Topic 2(c)- Improved soil carbon, soil health and soil fertility under grassland and cropland as well as integrated systems, including water management
Soil organic carbon (the carbon stored in soil organic matter) is crucial to soil health, fertility and ecosystem services, including food production – making its preservation and restoration essential for sustainable development. Soil degradation leads to loss of soil functions and productivity, and increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions so maintaining existing soil carbon stocks or enhancing them where feasible is a priority. Improving soil carbon, soil health and soil fertility has multiple benefits and synergies as part of efforts towards achieving biodiversity objectives under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), land degradation neutrality objectives under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the climate change adaptation and mitigation objectives under the UNFCCC.
What FAO is doing
Through its technical work, FAO is closing the knowledge gap by improving the understanding of the costs, benefits, trade-offs and synergies related to soil health and fertility, and water management.
For instance, FAO’s Global Soil Partnership (GSP), a globally recognized mechanism composed of over 330 partners from more than 100 countries, as well as all FAO member states, promotes sustainable soil management to guarantee healthy soils towards food security, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and sustainable development. The GSP is implementing various country-led initiatives around unlocking the potential of soil organic carbon (SOC). These include the Global Soil Organic Carbon Map; capacity building on SOC mapping and management in more than 100 countries and a framework and standard methodologies for the measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying (MRV) changes in SOC stocks and GHG emission removals from agricultural projects that adopt Sustainable Soil Management Practices at the farm level.
Resources
