Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Published on Friday, August 31, 2007 by Inter Press Service
Dirt Isn’t So Cheap After All
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/31/3547/

Soil erosion is the “silent global crisis” that is undermining food
production and water availability, as well as being responsible for 30
percent of the greenhouse gases driving climate change.
By Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada - “We are overlooking soil as the foundation of all life
on Earth,” said Andres Arnalds, assistant director of the Icelandic Soil
Conservation Service.

“Soil and vegetation is being lost at an alarming rate around the globe,
which in turn has devastating effects on food production and accelerates
climate change,” Arnalds told IPS from Selfoss, Iceland, host city of the
International Forum on Soils, Society and Climate Change which starts
Friday.0831 05

Along with many other international partner institutions, Iceland is
marking the centenary of its Soil Conservation Service by convening this
forum of experts.

Every year, some 100,000 square kilometres of land loses its vegetation and
becomes degraded or turns into desert.

“Land degradation and desertification may be regarded as the silent
crisis of the world, a genuine threat to the future of humankind,”
Arnalds said.

Food production has kept pace with population growth by increasing 50
percent between 1980 and 2000. But it is an open question whether there
will be enough food in 2050 with an estimated three billion more mouths to
feed.

That means more food has to be produced within the next 50 years than
during the last 10,000 years combined he noted.

“Global food production per hectare is already declining,” said Zafar
Adeel, director of the United Nations University’s Canadian-based
International Network on Water, Environment and Health.

There are a number of reasons for this decline, including the fact that
soil degradation is producing growing shortages of water. Soil and
vegetation act as a sponge that holds and gradually releases water, Adeel
explained.

The newest challenge to food production and conserving land and water
resources is the boom in vegetable-based biofuels, says Andrew Campbell,
Australia’s first National Landcare Facilitator.

“Soils are under greater pressure than ever before,” Campbell said in
an interview. “Governments around the world are subsidising crops to
produce biofuels.”

Hundreds of millions of square kilometers of farmland will soon be used to
meet a small part of the world’s rapidly growing thirst for fuel. And
even if rainforests aren’t being cleared to grow biofuel crops, as is the
case in parts of Asia and South America, they offer little if any net
environmental benefits, Campbell argues.

Another reason to rethink the stampede to biofuel: These crops use a lot of
water. In future, there will simply not be enough water to grow the food we
need, he says.

By most analyses, biofuels do little to help out the problem of climate
change, but preventing deforestation and soil loss the quickest and easiest
way to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

Paradoxically, the environmental problem of climate change may finally move
the world to act on another long-term fundamental environmental issue —
the protection of soils.

Land degradation and desertification may account for as much as about 30
percent of the world’s greenhouse gas releases, according to researcher
Rattan Lal of Ohio State University. These changes to the land also alter
the water, temperature and energy balance of the planet.

And climate change makes land degradation much worse and more extensive,
mainly through changes in precipitation and increased evaporation that
trigger more extreme weather.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas and “keeping carbon molecules
in the soil and in forests and grasslands is the quickest and best bang for
the buck in addressing climate change,” Adeel said.

There is money to be made in the new carbon markets by sequestering or
storing carbon in the soil and vegetation. As much as 20 percent of
anticipated net fossil fuel emissions between now and 2050 could be stored
in this way, said Maryam Niamir-Fuller of the U.N. Development Programme.

However, the so-called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) rules under the
Kyoto Protocol treaty on climate change need to be changed to ensure the
triple benefits from climate mitigation, climate adaptation and sustainable
development for the poor are achieved, said Niamir-Fuller in a statement.

A number of other fundamental policy changes are also needed if
conservation of soil and vegetation and restoration of degraded land to
ensure humanity’s future survival, experts say.

Ending the estimated 30 billion dollars in food subsidies in the north that
contribute directly to land degradation in Africa and elsewhere, and which
force poor farmers to intensify their production in order to compete, would
be a good start, Adeel said.

For Andrews, a sweeping change in how land use decisions are made at all
levels of government is needed. Soil, water, energy, climate, biodiversity,
food production are all interconnected, which demands integrated
policy-making. Decisions and policies are currently set by different
governmental departments and agencies with little regard for the impacts on
other sectors, he said.

Energy ministries will happily spend billions on biofuels without worrying
about where the water will come from, or how they will impact soils,
biodiversity and food prices, he warned.

There is also no formal agreement on protecting the world’s soils.
Delegates at the weekend forum in Iceland will consider propositions for an
International Year of Land Care to focus attention on soil stewardship,
which affects food and water security worldwide.

“We have battled very severe land degradation in Iceland that has taken
us 100 years to tackle,” Arnalds said.

That degradation means one-third of Iceland’s 103,000 sq km area is still
desert.

Iceland has should serve as both a warning to other countries and hope that
it is possible to restore degraded lands with enough resources, he says.

“It is far better to preserve than restore,” the scientist noted.

© 2007 Inter Press Service