Leigh Ann Winowiecki, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and Tor-Gunnar Vågen, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
A Land Degradation Surveillance framework could solve this problem by systematically measuring and tracking indicators of land health in Africa.
Scientists must remember that farmers are focused on the best return from their inputs with little risk as possible.
Dominic Chavez/World Bank/Flickr
Keith Shepherd, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)
Soil scientists have rarely gone the extra mile to translate their knowledge into forms that can be integrated into economic decision making.
Farmer-led development projects in places like Tanzania, shown here, can increase access to food and water, and reconnect people to nature.
(Cecilia Schubert/flickr)
Would you be shocked by a supermarket without carrots, potatoes or broccoli, at any time of year? But harvesting in the off-season does serious damage to our soil.
Soil has many secrets: technology can help reveal its mysteries.
Martin Bridgen
Healthy soil teems with bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microorganisms that help store carbon and fend off plant diseases. To restore soil, scientists are finding ways to foster its microbiome.
Healthy soil from an Oregon farm.
Aaron Roth, NRCS/Flickr
To help feed a growing world population, restore biodiversity and slow climate change, a geologist calls for a moon shot effort to restore healthy soil around the world.
Soils play an important role in the nutritional value of our food.
Researchers are developing biological tools that can boost crop yields to feed a growing world population without harming human health or the environment.
Frederick Baijukya, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and Fred Kanampiu, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
Increasing legume production can turn the tide for African farmers who struggle with poor soils, declining farm yields and worsening nutrition in one fell swoop
Researchers at several institutions are searching for microbial solutions for Africa’s low-performing staple crops.
Shutterstock
Microbial-based solutions are perhaps the best-kept secret in agricultural innovation.
Beefy problem: livestock emit methane, but the soils where they graze can be much more climate-friendly than cropland.
AAP Image/Caroline Duncan Photography
Eating meat means greenhouse emissions. But the emissions from growing crops may have been underestimated, meaning that a climate-friendly diet isn’t as straightforward as simply going vegetarian.
Modern day ecology involves large collaborations, such as this team at the Ethabuka South Site as part of the Nutrient Network.
Glenda Wardle
Where once scientists used to be solitary creatures, today science is a highly collaborative affair, and the latest research in ecology is no exception.
Nitrogen is one of the most important nutrients for soils and Africa doesn’t have enough.
Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
The world’s ‘drylands’ – already home to 38% of the world’s people – are set to dry out even more. And that could harm the soil microbes that keep soils healthy and help crops to grow.
The world’s soils store four times more carbon than its plants.
Elena Arkadova/Shutterstock.com