The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched two practical instruments to encourage soil organic carbon maintenance and sequestration, which are vital for climate action.

Carbon sequestration involves the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the form of soil organic carbon (SOC), with the capture of CO2 in the soil seen as an effective way of reducing greenhouse gases. Because soil rich in carbon is also healthier and more fertile, it can benefit farmers while helping meet the targets of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals.

“We must look for innovative ways to transform our agri-food systems into more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. Healthy soils are critical to achieving this.”
Qu Dongyu, FAO Director -General

As the decision-making body of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP), the GSP Plenary Assembly is where strategic decisions to boost the global soil agenda are taken.

Practical tools for recarbonizing global soils

The degradation of one-third of the world’s soils has already released up to 78 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, so further damage to soil carbon stocks through poor soil management would hamper efforts to contain a rise in global temperatures.

As the climate changes, more carbon will likely be lost to the atmosphere than be sequestered into the soil if business-as-usual agricultural practices continue, resulting in a soil carbon-climate feedback loop that could further accelerate climate change. Of particular concern are hotspots such as peatlands, black soils, permafrost, and grasslands, containing the highest soil organic carbon.

Managing soils sustainably and rehabilitating degraded agricultural soils and grasslands can help mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis and improve food security and nutrition. Healthy soils have proven to be more productive and resilient to changing climate patterns and extreme events.

The GloSIS Global (Beta) (GSOCseq) launched is the first country-driven global estimation of SOC sequestration potential worldwide. The resulting map offers various layers of information, helping users visualize crucial data such as initial SOC stocks and predicted SOC stocks under different sustainable soil management and business-as-usual scenarios and relative sequestration rates.

According to this map, soils, if managed sustainably, can sequester up to 0.56 petagrams of carbon or 2.05 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, having the potential to offset yearly as much as 34 percent of agricultural global greenhouse gas emissions.

SOC manual developed

The second product launched by FAO is a compendium of good practices for farmers on maintaining SOC stocks and how to sequester CO2. The result of three years of a collective effort by more than 400 specialists from around the world, the six-volume technical manual is the first attempt to collect good soil management practices supported by good scientific data on the impacts of these practices on SOC content in a wide array of environments and land uses.

The technical manual offers practical solutions for terrains and situations, from crop rotation methods refined over thousands of years to modern nutrient management techniques.

While soils and soil health are well-rooted in the global agenda, tangible impacts remain a significant challenge “for better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life for all, leaving no one behind,” Qu Dongyu, FAO Director-General said.