Soils are essential to life on Earth. Their protection is of the utmost importance to ensure the future of agri-food systems and the provision of key ecosystem services. While there is increasing attention to the importance of biodiversity for food security and nutrition, especially above-ground biodiversity such as plants and animals, less attention is being paid to the biodiversity beneath our feet, soil biodiversity.

This year’s World Soil Day aims to raise awareness of the importance of the diversity of soil organisms for most terrestrial ecosystem services, including food production, water storage and purification, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration and source of medicines.

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the observance of the World Soil Day will be celebrated virtually, on Friday, 4 December 2020, 13:00 - 14:30 (Rome time).

The observance will highlight how soil biodiversity can provide a truly natural solution to many of the problems humanity faces today, from the field to the global scale, as well as efforts to conserve and protect it. 

During this celebration, FAO will launch the first ever report on the “State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity” covering its current status, challenges and potentialities. The Glinka World Soil Prize and the King Bhumibol World Soil Day Award will also be awarded.

The event will bring together government officials, international organisations and a wide array of experts on soil biodiversity. Discussions will be moderated by award-winning Thomson Reuters Foundation correspondent, Thin Lei Win.

Journalists can follow the event via Zoom here. The event will also be webcast here.  Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish.

The celebration can be followed on social media using the hashtags #WorldSoilDay, #SoilBiodiversity