The vision of the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) is “Healthier soils and plants for a food-secure and sustainable world.” Why do we focus on soil health? Farmers plant seeds, which grow into plants that feed livestock and people. It seems simple, but the reality is far more complex.
We take the soil beneath our feet for granted, but healthy soil does even more than produce healthy plants for consumption – it also retains water, supports biodiversity, minimizes carbon emissions, and provides economic benefits for farmers and their communities. Soil must be actively maintained over time, or we risk degrading this critical resource until it can no longer perform these vital functions.
IFDC believes that good soil health is the fundamental condition necessary to ensure global economic, environmental, and food security.
Without healthy soil, global food security is not achievable; the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that soils could degrade globally by as much as 90% by 2050 without significant intervention, leaving the future of agriculture hanging in the balance.
In 2015, the United Nations reported that over 33% of the world’s soil was moderately to highly degraded. In the decade since, global reports have shown that approximately 100 million hectares of productive land degrade yearly. Aside from the catastrophic implications that soil degradation can have on ecosystems – such as desertification and water pollution from erosion – degradation threatens social and economic well-being around the world. Each year, eroded soil leads to a global financial loss totaling about US $400 billion, reducing opportunities for investment in communities and economies as a result.
By prioritizing soil health as an environmental, social, and economic leverage point, IFDC researchers and practitioners are developing more efficient methods of soil nutrient management for farmers across the world while simultaneously supporting the development of markets for agricultural products to be traded. In this way, farmers and entrepreneurs can strengthen their livelihoods from the ground up.
Healthy Soils for a More Secure World
Soils support over 95% of global food production. Consequently, coordinated investment in soil health can significantly impact economic development opportunities for farmers and agriculture businesses. Soil health and nutrient management efforts, such as integrated soil fertility management (ISFM), can help farmers improve the quality and quantity of their harvests. Products of such harvests, in turn, have a positive impact on food systems, improving local food security through enhanced access, affordability, utilization, and stability.
So, why soil health? It is a single solution that can transform the biggest challenges humanity faces. Without soil health, the environmental, social, and economic systems that our world relies on would be significantly less functional, and people around the world may face greater difficulty when trying to overcome poverty and food insecurity. Furthermore, the consequences of land degradation (i.e., desertification and erosion) may become more prevalent in communities that lack the capacity to utilize more sustainable land management solutions. The world as we know it would become more difficult – if not impossible – to navigate without soil health.
