World Soil Day 5th December 2024

Soil is fundamental for life on Earth. Soil is alive, and when it is healthy, it performs many critical functions.

It is not just a medium for plant growth; it also stores and regulates water, and is home to an unbelievably diverse group of living organisms working non-stop to recycle nutrients, transforming dead organisms into the basis of new living things. Everything that we consume is literally grounded in soil[1].

Yet for most of the twentieth century, the focus of soil science has been soil chemistry and soil physics.  Farmers and land managers are well versed in the usual physical and chemical tests that have become routine in modern agricultural systems: pH, macro and micronutrient balance and availability, even physical structure.

Ask farmers and land managers what they think is important and the universal response will be ‘soil health’ – ask them what soil tests they perform, and invariably the response will be physical and chemical tests.  Soil biology sadly often remains the poor relation.

Soil biology has long been overlooked yet it plays a vital role in determining many soil characteristics. The decomposition of organic matter by soil organisms has an immense influence on soil fertility, plant growth, soil structure, and, crucially from a climate change mitigation perspective, carbon storage.

The Earth’s soils contain about 2,500 gigatons of carbon—that’s more than three times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and four times the amount stored in all living plants and animals[2]

Globally, there has been a net average decrease of about 60 metric tons of carbon per km2 per year with a total loss of 3.1 billion tons of carbon from an area of two million km2 over about 25 years[3].

This, of course, is one of the principal drivers of the regenerative agriculture movement, seeking to reverse historic degradation of soils by rebuilding soil organic matter and soil carbon.

The theme of today’s UN World Soil Day 2024 is “Caring for soils: measure, monitor and manage”.

We need better data about the biological health of soils, and more consistency in how we measure it in different geographies and land use systems.

At Climate Asset Management we are proud to be pioneering innovative approaches to soil health metrication and management as part of our integrated Impact Framework linked to positive land use change.

[1] https://crowtherlab.com/dirt-cheap-no-way-soil-is-the-priceless-foundation-of-all-life-on-earth/

[2] https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/02/21/can-soil-help-combat-climate-change/

[3] https://www.welthungerhilfe.org/global-food-journal/rubrics/agricultural-food-policy/soil-degradation-soil-organic-carbon-climate-change