World Soil Day: Opening Remarks by Mr Lifeng Li, Director Land and Water Division

World Soil Day

Thursday 15 December 2022 UN HQ

Excellences, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Today, I’m very happy to join you from Montreal at the Convention on Biological Diversity CoP15 to celebrate the 9^h UN World Soil Day at UNHQ.

Soils are home to over one-fourth of biodiversity on this planet, thus it’s important to bring soil biodiversity into the CBD CoP15 and the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. I thank you all for conveying this message to your respective delegation here in Montreal.

Soil is where 95 percent of our food is produced.

Soils have the extraordinary capacity to store, transform, and recycle nutrients that are needed to produce healthy crops.

Out of the 18 nutrients essential to plants, 15 are supplied by healthy soils.

However, one-third of soils on the planet is degraded due to the impacts of unsustainable human activities, natural processes and climate change.

Soil nutrient imbalance is identified as one of the main global soil threats caused by the underuse, misuse, and overuse of nutrients.

We need to produce safe and more nutritious food containing multiple micronutrients while avoiding the degradation of soils reducing the emissions and the pollution of our agri-food systems.

The adoption and implementation of the International Code of Conduct for the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers are more important than ever given the current fertilizer crisis.

Today, I want to draw your particular attention to Black Soils, on which the FAO report ‘The Global Status of Black Soils’ provides further details.

Black Soils are carbon-rich and highly fertile soils that occupy 725 million hectares of the land surface and constitute 5.6 percent of global soils.

They are the giant panda in the soil family and the food bucket for us. I hope the recommendations in this report will be implemented by related governments and stakeholders.

Excellencies, friends of soil, 

This year, more than 1 600 celebration events were organized in more than 110 countries across the globe. This demonstrates that there is more understanding from people about the importance of healthy soils for all.

Next year, recognizing the watershed moment – UN 2023 Water Conference, FAO will organize a Global Symposium on Soil and Water, to bring soils onto the water agenda.

FAO through its Global Soil Partnership is firmly committed to continuing to promote sustainable soil management at all levels, Mobilizing partnerships and resources to support Member Countries to implement sustainable soil management solutions.

Soil is where food begins!  Let’s join forces for safeguarding healthy soils for healthy people and a healthy planet.

I wish you a Happy World Soil Day.

Thank you.