Global Soil Partnership Assembly Discusses How to Meet “Ambitious and Urgent” Target

 The Global Soil Partnership, bringing together hundreds of diverse actors focused on improving the health of our soils to promote healthier and more resilient agrifood systems, opened a key meeting today with a call for urgent action to meet its objectives amid a range of complex crises.

Hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and including FAO Members and over 700 partners, together “we champion a vision of a world in which soils are healthy and resilient, ensuring the sustained provision of  ecosystem functions and services for all, leaving no one behind,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said in opening remarks to the Partnership’s 12th Plenary Assembly, highlighting the need to ensure sustainable soil management based on the three “Rs”: reduce, re-use, and renew.

Ambitious, urgent target

The Global Soil Partnership is committed to improve and maintain the health of at least 50 percent of the world's soils by 2030, an ambitious and urgent target that demands political will, cooperation and investment, Qu noted.

Among the sessions during first day of the three-day gathering will be an event hosted by the US Department of State focusing on its Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS), aimed at creating a resilient food system through the promotion of diverse, nutritious, and climate-adapted crops grown in healthy, fertile soils.

Under the VACS initiative, FAO is implementing the Soil Mapping for Resilient Agrifood Systems (SoilFER) project in Central America and African countries. The project stands out as a unique framework aimed at unearthing valuable information from soils to guide policymaking and fertilizer recommendations both at national and field scale.

Thailand’s Land Development Department and World Soil Day Association will host an event showcasing success stories of Thailand and other countries through policy actions promoting sustainable soil management practices that are context-specific, locally adapted and culturally suitable.

Other topics include Measuring, Reporting and Verifying systems related to soil health;  implementing a Global Soil Laboratory Network (GLOSOLAN) quality certificate for carbon analytical results on soil samples; Conservation Agriculture, the management of Water and Soil Organic Carbon against soil erosion and for food security and the role of healthy soils in agrifood systems transformation.