Restoring Soil Can Help Address Climate Change

Soils under stress

Healthy, fertile soils are rich in organic matter built of carbon that living plants pulled out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis.  Carbon-rich organic matter helps fuel the soil organisms that recycle and release mineral elements that plants take back up as nutrients.

But soils release carbon too.  And the frequent tillage and heavy fertilizer use that underpin modern conventional agriculture have accelerated degradation of soil organic matter, sending more carbon skyward – a lot, it turns out.

The new IPCC report concludes that globally, cropland soils have lost 20-60% of their original organic carbon content.  North American farmland has lost about half of its natural endowment of soil carbon.  On top of those losses, modern agriculture consumes a lot of fossil fuels to pull plows and manufacture the synthetic nitrogen fertilizers that farmers rely on to coax large harvests from degraded soils.

Read more at Restoring Soil Can Help Address Climate Change