2015 International Year of Soils: The soil, true ally to feed the world

In the Latin American continent, approximately 300 million hectares are affected by erosion, according to IFAD data. The land is exhausted and in danger of irreversible degradation, threatening the region's potential for food production.

According to WWF, half of the topsoil has disappeared in the last 150 years. This great loss casts doubt on the planet's ability to produce enough food to supply a population that is increasing by the minute.

Soils are the only ally to feed the world. From the red lands of the tropics to the blacks of the Andean mountain ranges, the fertile soils are the hope and the future of the millions of inhabitants of the planet.

"Soils retain carbon, which contributes to the mitigation of climate change, "Explains Mohamed Bakarr, senior environmental specialist at the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

"The most valuable part of the soil contains a lot of carbon, but through erosion it can end up as sediment in the rivers or loose in the air"He adds.

According to FAO, soils are home to a quarter of biodiversity.

A non-renewable resource

The fertile lands are not inexhaustible or everlasting, as anyone could think, on the contrary, the fertile soil is a non-renewable resource.

The fertile land can take up to a thousand years to produce only one centimeter of vegetable layer and its healthy state is in direct connection with the total health of the planet. At present, there is no disconnection between the health of the soil and daily life. The 16% of Latin Americans depend directly on the land.

For these reasons, the UN has named 2015 the International Year of Soils as an invitation to look down at the earth under our feet, and reconnect with its characteristics that give life to the world and especially to human life.

It is assured that in order to produce enough food for the more than 9.000 millions of people that inhabit the planet, it is necessary to increase production by 70%. In this perspective, a greater surface and quality of arable land is urgently needed, since the mere intensification of its use would have an effect on the quality of the land, since current agricultural practices threaten the vitality of the soil.

Agriculture as a threat

Agrofrutícola production represents around 25% of Latin American exports and 13% of agricultural trade globally. According to the projections, with the 28% of new potential arable land in the region, Latin America is well positioned to increase production and consolidate itself as an agro-food superpower.

However, we must change agricultural habits since agriculture generates almost a third of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. This, in turn, accelerates the process of degradation and desertification and increases the amount of energy, water and fertilizers required for food production.

The custom of plowing the land, for example, means that the plants or vegetables that maintain their stability are removed from the surface of the soil and that they protect with their roots the drag by the waters of the rich layers of nutrients.

On the other hand, spraying the crops through the use of aggressive fertilizers also affects the quality of the soils, since the chemicals not absorbed by the plants go directly to the basins due to the dragging of the rain.

The threat of soil degradation is felt throughout the continent. For example, in Argentina it has been more than a century that sheep farming has been the main source of livelihoods in Patagonia, which has meant that today an 85% of the area is affected by the degradation of lands resulting from overgrazing. Or in Colombia, that 148.000 hectares of forest are lost per year to dedicate them to livestock, a sector that already makes use of an 30% of the national territory.

Soil degradation is not only a threat to livelihoods but also to biodiversity and regional ecosystems. As a consequence, the process towards restoration is long and complex.

"One of the main challenges is that it is very expensive if the land is abandoned "explains Bakarr. "[In the GEF] we encourage producers to continue cultivating the land. Where life has strong links with soils, there are incentives to invest resources".

New strategies 

Currently, and according to the new initiatives of soil recovery, farmers in Colombia, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, instead of cutting down forests have received help to make shade livestock, known as "silvopastoral" agriculture, which consists of raising the won in the shade to help restore pastoral lands and protect biodiversity.

Clearly, the drylands are more vulnerable, not only to degradation, but also run the serious risk of desertification. In Argentina, these lands represent 75% of the national territory, and half are located in Patagonia. With the support of the GEF, pastoralists in this area have implemented sustainable practices to reduce pressure on the land and improve the quality of the people who depend on it.

In Chile, the situation is not better with respect to the quality of the degraded soils and the amount it represents, which is why there are already dozens of initiatives for reforestation and soil recovery for cultivation in the national strategic perspective of converting Chile into an agro-food power .

 

Source: IFAD.org

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