Protecting Soil Biodiversity Key for the Future of Food
7 December 2020, Washington, DC – From tiny bacteria to agile millipedes and slimy earthworms – organic matter in soil are indispensable to life on Earth. To celebrate healthy soils, FAO North America organized a webinar on 2 December in advance of World Soil Day on 5 December.
Thomas Pesek, Senior Liaison Officer at FAO North America moderated the session. He explained that this year’s World Soil Day campaign, “Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity,” encourages governments, organizations, communities and individuals around the world to commit to proactively improving soil health.
“Loss of soil biodiversity is a matter of grave concern,” said Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America, in his welcoming remarks. “Soil is home to more than a quarter of our planet’s biodiversity. Yet, we only know 1 percent of this universe.”
Rattan Lal, the 2020 World Food Prize Laureate, provided the keynote speech, emphasizing that soil rights are as important as air and land rights. “Soil health is connected intimately with plant health, animal health, human health, environmental health, and planetary health,” emphasized Lal. “A prudent strategy for soil health includes producing more from less, enhancing eco-efficiency, restoring degraded soils, afforestation for denuded lands, and saving soil and water for nature.”
Ronald Vargas, Secretary of the Global Soil Partnership and Land and Water Officer at FAO, echoed the importance of improving soil protection and safeguarding biodiversity, adding, “more than 40 percent of living organisms in terrestrial ecosystems are associated directly with soil during their life cycle.”
Diana Wall, Director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University emphasized the value of the recently launched State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity report. “Soil biodiversity, based on this first global soil biodiversity report, is important not only for agriculture policies but also for all biodiversity policies and reports that are coming out, and it needs to be included for better land management.”
“The study of biodiversity has become central to the research activities of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as science started uncovering the important interconnections between biodiversity, agricultural productivity and resilience,” said Michèle Marcotte, Director of Research, Development and Technology at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “Soils, but most importantly organisms in the soils, are providing essential functions for ecosystems to thrive.” Marcotte shared that Canada is working to use sequencing technologies and DNA barcoding to continue to better understand soil biodiversity.
The Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is also working to decode soil biodiversity. David Knaebel, National Program Leader (Soil Biology), Agricultural Research Service at USDA explained, “ARS is focusing efforts on understanding soil microbiomes of agricultural systems in order to understand how to manage them for better productivity, sustainability and resilience to pests and climate change.”
This event brought together global experts dedicated to soil biodiversity. Soil is essential for life, and this World Soil Day webinar highlighted the often overlooked, living community known as soil. World Soil Day is celebrated each year on 5 December, though continued dedication and action must be taken to protect soil year-round.
Further Information:
Watch a recording of the webinar
FAO Story: Soils should have rights, too
State of Knowledge of Soil Biodiversity report