Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Global Soil Partnership’s draft Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management. I applaud the breadth of expertise and effort that has gone into its preparation. The ITPS has produced a useful set of guiding principles to inform and encourage farmers, public policy makers and private stakeholders to restore and steward our planet’s soils.
However, as the major objective of the VGSSM is “to promote and support the global adoption of sustainable soil practices”; I believe these Guidelines should be much more direct in advocating actionable practices appropriate to local conditions and circumstances that enable field-to-landscape scaled soil stewardship. Although the draft VGSSM presents an extensive list of soil functions and processes; it fails to provide cohesive propositions and integrated practice examples that could guide decision making by farmers, input suppliers and public policy makers.
More discussion is needed of the soil building benefits of diversified crop rotations that deliver organic carbon inputs; biological nitrogen fixation; weed management; root penetration of compacted soils; pest pressure disruption; and other supportive functions. Attention should be given to advancing private sector and public policy initiatives that would develop local, regional and national capacities for producing varietal seeds; reduced tillage and direct seeding mechanical equipment; large volume organic composting; and supplying other farming system resources and technical support services.
While beneficial soil microbes and fungi are briefly mentioned in the draft VGSSM; there should be much more discussion of the importance of establishing healthy soil biota through crop residue retention; inoculating seed and soil with beneficial microbial and fungal treatments; and measures that promote the production of Glomalin and other exudates that enrich soil tilth and structure. The Guidelines should also draw attention to the value of increased research in the fields of beneficial soil biota and their symbiotic interrelationships that promote plant growth and improved resilience. Global agricultural research efforts significantly focus on developing improved commodity crops; with extremely limited research underway to discover and leverage the biological dynamics of soil fertility and microfauna biodiversity. This research imbalance must be corrected.
The GSP aspires to promote soil management practices that contribute to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals concerning food security, ecological balance and improved social and economic equity. These important additional dimensions of beneficial outcomes of soil management would be advanced if the Guidelines acknowledged and recommended practices and implementation strategies that are particularly applicable to smallholder farmers; promote rural development; and advance reliance on sustainably sourced soil nutrients and other agronomic resources.
The VGSSM should explicitly promote soil management actions that encourage formation of rural enterprises that supply sustainably sourced inputs or convert and recycle organic wastes into restorative soil amendments and nutrients. It would also be useful to recognize and advocate innovative agricultural and land use policies that provide incentives to invest in improved soil management; or that regulate practices that damage or degrade soils or diminish fresh water availability and quality.
The Guidelines should also more clearly describe and encourage practices and technologies that enable soil carbon and biochar sequestration to be implemented as high potential measures for reducing Greenhouse Gas levels (e.g. see Dr. Pete Smith’s recent paper in Global Change Biology, 2016). As nations struggle to adapt to climate change and reduce their GHG emissions; it is critically important that the global community develop and implement agricultural practices that reduce emissions while increasing productivity and resiliency. Sustainable soil management and organic carbon sequestration pathways should be included in national climate action plans. The Guidelines should help increase public awareness of these cost effective GHG mitigation opportunities.
I hope that my comments are useful to further strengthen and improve the utility and impact of the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management.
With best regards,
Patrick Binns
Westbrook Associates LLC
Seattle, WA USA
Patrick Binns