Spotlight turns to humanity’s silent ally and the risks it faces
Healthy soils are critical for global food production and provide a range of environmental services. |
Rome—Healthy soils are critical for global
food production, but we are not paying enough attention to this important
"silent ally," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said on
the eve of World Soil Day, to be celebrated on 5 December.
Healthy
soils not only are the foundation for food, fuel, fiber and medical products,
but also are essential to our ecosystems, playing a key role in the carbon
cycle, storing and filtering water, and improving resilience to floods and
droughts, he noted.
The
UN has declared 2015 the International Year of Soils. The year will be kicked
off tomorrow at events in Rome, New York and Santiago de Chile, in an effort to
raise awareness and promote more sustainable use of this critical
resource.
"Today,
we have more than 805 million people facing hunger and malnutrition. Population
growth will require an approximately increase of 60 percent in food production.
As so much of our food depends on soils, it is easy to understand how important
it is to keep them healthy and productive," Graziano da Silva said,
adding: "Unfortunately, 33 percent of our global soil resources are under
degradation and human pressures on soils are reaching critical limits, reducing
and sometimes eliminating essential soil functions."
"I
invite all of us to take an active role in promoting the cause of soils during
2015 as it is an important year for paving the road towards a real sustainable
development for all and by all," he added.
Soils - key resource at risk
FAO
estimates that a third of all soils are degraded, due to erosion, compaction,
soil sealing, salinization, soil organic matter and nutrient depletion,
acidification, pollution and other processes caused by unsustainable land
management practices.
Unless
new approaches are adopted, the global amount of arable and productive land per
person will in 2050 be only one-fourth of the level in 1960.
It
can take up to 1,000 years to form one centimeter of soil, and with 33 percent
of all global soil resources degraded and human pressures increasing, critical
limits are being reached that make stewardship an urgent matter, Graziano da
Silva said.
Calling
soils a "nearly forgotten resource," he called for more investment in
sustainable soil management, saying that would be cheaper than restoration and
"is needed for the achievement of food security and nutrition, climate
change adaptation and mitigation and overall sustainable development."
At
least a quarter of the world's biodiversity lives underground, where, for
example, the earthworm is a giant alongside tiny organisms such as bacteria and
fungi. Such organisms, including plant roots, act as the primary agents driving
nutrient cycling and help plants by improving nutrient intake, in turn
supporting above-ground biodiversity as well.
Better
management can assure that those usually unnoticed organisms boost soil's
ability to absorb carbon and mitigate desertification, so that even more carbon
can be sequestered—helping offset agriculture's own emissions of greenhouse
gases.
Mapping the earth
FAO has implemented more than 120 soil-related projects around the
world and produced together with UNESCO the World Soil Map. Among the most urgent priorities is to update,
standardize and render accessible the world's knowledge of soil types and
distribution.
Currently,
data on soils is very often outdated, limited in coverage, and fragmented in
nature. One of FAO's priorities is to establish a global soil information
system that could assist with reliable data decision-making regarding soil
management.
FAO
has embarked on a host of initiatives, including launching the Global Soil
Partnership, which has rolled out the Healthy Soils Facility as its
operational arm.
Comments
Post a Comment