How Much Margin Is Left for Degrading Agricultural Soils? The Coming Soil Crises

Abstract

Agricultural soils are in peril. Multiple lines of observational and empirical evidence suggest that we are losing the world’s fertile soils at an alarming rate, worsening the on-going global food crisis. It is increasingly clear that the risk of soil crises driven by erratic precipitation, warming air, and farming mismanagement is coming sooner rather than later. At this critical time, society cannot avoid looking for ways to curb soil crises. We argue that now is the right time for science-based mitigation strategies and new insights to protect soils. We offer four research priority areas that society needs to address. Arresting and reversing the ongoing soil degradation are tantamount to safeguarding humanity and the environment. To the extent that we continue to treat soil crises as a problem for farmers only—not as a global challenge—we only escalate the scale to which the problem will grow in time and complexity.

Keywords

• soil health
• drought
• soil organic carbon
• reduced tillage
• cover cropping
• soil organic matter