From afar, scaling soil health by switching from traditional monocrop agricultural systems to regenerative systems may seem as easy as planting the right plants in the right spot. However transitioning to new systems usually sees farmers’ yields decrease before they increase, which can be a limiting factor for farmers who don’t have a financial cushion to fall back on. Support is needed to help them bridge the gap.

CA4SH is a multi-stakeholder partnership of member states, the private sector, research institutions, civil society, farmer organizations, multilateral organizations, NGOs, and more. Drawing on this wealth of knowledge, we organized the second installation of our 2024 Webinar Series: The road ahead for soil health action to explore different mechanisms to invest in soil health, making sure these investments reach smallholder farmers.

CA4SH is a multi stakeholder partnership of member states, the private sector, research institutions, civil society, farmer organizations, multilateral organizations, NGOs, and more. Drawing on this wealth of knowledge, we organized the first installation of our 2024 Webinar Series: The road ahead for soil health action.

From 26 February to 1 March 2024, the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) took place at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss global environmental policy amongst the 193 Member States.

The discussions centred on how multilateralism can help tackle the triple planetary environmental crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, pollution and waste. Luckily, we know well of a solution to these challenges and, indeed, all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: scaling soil health, globally.

Learn more about CA4SH engagements at UNEA-6.

“Soils are not just a support: they have to be in good health for agricultural activities to be established and prosper. In Ivory Coast, the Ministry of Agriculture has brought together farmers, policymakers and scientists to work on practical operations aimed at guaranteeing the long-term future of soils in the forest landscapes of West Africa. The participants have made a series of recommendations, including controlling deforestation, reducing pesticide use and extending agroforestry.”

Read the full story from CIRAD

Image Caption: Field study on soil health in the Téné Classified Forest, Ivory Coast © CIRAD

“Setting ambitious climate targets is great, achieving them is even better. The European Commission can be commended for setting its 2040 aim of a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 1990 levels.

To achieve the target, yesterday the Commission has proposed a significant scale-up of carbon removals on the path to climate neutrality.

Yet before waiving the victory flag for ambition, we must acknowledge that the EU is already struggling to meet the majority of its climate and energy 2030 targets and there are significant policy implementation gaps post-2030.”

By Erica Johnson (External Affairs Manager of Agreena) and Zsolt Lengyel (Secretary of the Board of the Institute for European Energy & Climate Policy)

By: Wendy Lu Maxwell-Barton, International Biochar Initiative

Since September of 2023, the world has known that the global community is not meeting the goals set in the Paris Accord— and the window to meet them without exceeding 2 degrees C or warmer is rapidly closing. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Global Stocktake process emphasized both the need for emissions reductions, as well as carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to slow and eventually reverse climate change-caused global warming.

While CDR technologies come in many forms and scales, the technology funded at a very high rate to date is direct air capture, garnering some US$4B in funding, tax breaks, and other sources of government funding. Despite this, there is less well-known yet predominant CDR technology that simultaneously delivers improved soil health, strengthened food security, and increased farmer profits through increased crop yields and lowered input costs on top of carbon dioxide removal. What am I referring to? Biochar carbon removal.

Healthy soil is a complex web of nutrient recycling from plants, animals and insects, alike. Organic material in soil is absolutely imperative to the natural processes that provide vital ecosystem services like water filtration and crop growth, and it enters the soil from various stages in the soil food web.

Despite being a product of decomposition processes, healthy soil is never dirty, but it can be unclean. With natural processes at the core of their approach, biotech company Nutrition Technologies has found a way to intervene against plant pathogens that commonly threaten agricultural soils. 

“San José, 13 December 2023 (IICA) The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative (VCMI), the Argentine Association of No-till Farmers (AAPRESID), the Group of Producing Countries from the Southern Cone (GPS), the Department of Forestry at Michigan State University (MSU), Gold Standard, Rabobank's ACORN and Climate Focus will join forces in 2024 to support the access of the agricultural sector in Latin America and the Caribbean to financing of voluntary and compliance carbon markets.”

Read the full story from IICA

There’s strong evidence linking the health of our soils with the overall human health. Healthy soils play a pivotal role in the production of crops that contribute to the nutritional well-being of individuals. This link between soil health and human health can be understood through several key aspects:

Read the full article from CropNuts

“Seth J. Itzkan of Soil4Climate discusses the role of holistically managed ruminants to restore soil biology and mitigate global warming. Nikita Zimov (Pleistocene Park) and Alasdair MacLeod (Macdoch Group) in attendance.”

Read the full story from Soil4Climate

By Aisha and Lukas, Cycle to Farms

“Amidst Criticism, COP28 in UAE Shows Promise for Food and Agriculture

We had the honor of attending COP28 in Dubai as observers, and despite initial skepticism, we came away impressed by the positive tone and the tangible progress made on food and agriculture.”

Click to read the full story

The COP28 Presidency announced that 134 world leaders have signed up to its landmark agriculture, food and climate action declaration.

Click to read the details and download the press release and declaration.

By Harry Johnstone

“Justus Ndemwa is sitting on an empty plastic water canister. He looks away. His voice is soft and faltering. “For five years the rains have failed,” he says.

Some days, the 72-year-old, who suffers from anaemia, eats only rice or beans. He is not alone. Now because of the high cost of food and the impacts of climate change, millions of Kenyans face hunger every day. As the situation persists, something, surely, has to change.”

Read the full article from The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN).

Meet Survivor Aid; a youth-led NGO based in South Sudan who are working to empower smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable farming methods that are good for people and the planet.

Gladys Foliyamu is a smallholder farmer in Malawi who has increased her household food security and income opportunities through home gardening. Gladys is supported by the NEVAM project from Agri-Impact Malawi who advocate for making the most of available land through sustainable farming practices.

Aisha Hassan and Lukas Paltanavičius are cycling across the world to learn hands-on about practices of regenerative agriculture. In this guest article on the Furrow, they uncover how regenerative agriculture helps to increase biodiversity.

“Women play a critical role in the agricultural sector, comprising 43% of the agricultural labor force globally and making significant contributions to household and national food security. Despite their essential role, they face several challenges that limit their ability to adopt sustainable agricultural practices and adapt to climate change, including access to information and finance.”

Burning of unused crop residue is a common practice among farmers in India, contributing to carbon emissions and air pollution. BAIF and GIZ have partnered to establish a farmer producer organisation to convert this residue into biochar. Farmers sell their waste biomass to the FPO and purchase biochar to apply to their crop fields.

Health of the Soil (HotS) recently launched the "Love in Soil Again" (LISA) Initiative, a new plan that has been ambitiously designed to restore and facilitate deep-rooted craving, love, loyalty, respect and expertise for the health of our soils.

“Srouy’s hands move deftly amongst the vines, her thumb and forefinger pinching each ripe bean from its stem. By the end of the month, she will have harvested some 60 kilograms of beans for sale to her local farmers’ cooperative. Today, after forty years of farming, Srouy is as much entrepreneur as farmer…”