Soil Organic Matter for Climate Change Mitigation: Boon or Bane for Food Security
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Dr. Deborah Bossio's presentation of potential opportunities and challenges for carbon sequestration in soils globally. Increasing soil organic matter can improve soil fertility, agricultural production, food security, and restore degraded land. Wageningen Soil Conference, August, 2015
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Soil Organic Matter for Climate Change Mitigation: Boon or Bane for Food Security
- 1. Soil Organic Matter for Climate Change Mitigation: Boon or Bane for Food Security? Dr. Deborah Bossio d.bossio@cgiar.org 24 August 2015 Wageningen Soil Conference
- 2. 4‰ In March of 2015 Minister Le Foll of France announced the establishment of an international research program “to improve soil organic matter at an annual rate of 4‰1 ”, and that “such an increase would offset emissions of green house gasses on the planet2 ” 1 Press release ‘Contribution de l’agriculture à la lutte contre le changement climatique : Stéphane Le Foll annonce le lancement d’un projet de recherche international : le « 4 pour 1000 » . MAAF, Paris, March 17, 2015. 2 See http://agriculture.gouv.fr/Cop21-le-4-pour-1000 Soussana, Saint-Macary, Chotte 2015 0.4% per year sequestration soil organic carbon Annual Fossil Carbon Emissions annual land carbon sink annual ocean carbon sink 4‰ target additional land sink
- 3. 3.5 Optimistic senario (1 t/ha/yr) and rapid implementation, peak of carbon sequestration in soil predicted for 2030 - coherent with the need for early action, but far short of the 4‰ target. (Sommer and Bossio 2014) Gt/year Carbon required for the 4‰ target •0.4 – 1.2 Gt estimated total carbon sequestration potential in cropland soils of the world •2.8 – 3.0 Gt for all soils of the world (Lal 2010)
- 4. 50 to 70 % loss of soil carbon stocks in cultivated soils (Lal 2004) Restoring degraded soils affords substantial opportunities to sequester carbon Increase of 1 ton of soil carbon pool of degraded cropland soils may increase crop yield by 30 to 50 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha) for wheat, 100 to 300 kg/ha for maize, and 30 - 50kg/ha for soybeans (Lal 2006)
- 5. SOIL Organic Matter = SOIL FERTILITY = PRODUCTIVITY = FOOD SECURITY + RESTORED LAND AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES water cycle regulation climate resilience …
- 6. The promise of Climate Smart Agriculture?Climate Smart Agriculture?
- 7. Restoring degraded pastures with tropical forages – storing carbon at depth 4 to 5 fold increase in animal production Resilience to drought 35% increase in soil carbon 75% below 20 cm Fisher et al. 1994, 2007 80% CLAY 18% CLAY 35 18
- 8. Bringing back Sahel’s Underground Forest Restored Soils Sequestration of carbon in soils and trees More grain Reduces drought impacts Cooper et al 2013; Reij et al 2009
- 9. Irrigation – unexplored opportunity Increase, stabilize, diversify production Climate resilience 60% increase in soil carbon?!* *temperate system, native sagebrush to irrigated pasture Entry, Soika, Shewmaker 2002 Irrigation is a major policy initiative in African Nations, embedded in CAADP
- 10. Urban-rural waste recycling – answer to the missing nutrients? Peri-urban food production Climate resilience ??% increase in soil carbon Thebo, Drechsel and Lambin 2014 • 456 million hectares of land, 11% of irrigated and 5% of rainfed croplands, are within 20 kilometers of cities • Waste water a gigantic source of nutrients or gigantic pollution problem
- 11. Soil Organic Carbon measuring and monitoring – huge progress already Vågen and Winowiecki 2013 Land Degradation Surveillance Framework •Field based, infrared, ensemble prediction models •30 m resolution, 30 cm depth •Repeatable and robust across wide range of climate and land use East Africa Ethiopia lowlandsKenya TanzaniaEthiopia highlands
- 12. Soil Organic Carbon dynamics in tropical soils -- still a lot to learn Winowiecki, Vågen, Huising 2015 • SOC lower with more sand and with cultivation (as expected) • But not always - in one site SOC was higher in cultivated plots than non cultivated • Site with low sand the range of SOC very high • 2000 soil samples from 7 different sites in Tanzania
- 13. Soil organic carbon and mitigation - difficult questions • N2O emissions increase under practices that boost SOC • Permanence of sequestered carbon • Sequestration of nutrients, N, P, K etc. • ….. Sommer et al 2015
- 14. Perhaps the biggest concern is that ‘soil carbon farming’ may threaten rather than strengthen food security, by reducing small holders access to natural resources In a recent review of REDD projects, project design often denied access to women because they had i) did not have secure land tenure ii) were unable to participate in meetings iii) projects strengthened men’s rights to land. Lee et al. 2015 Rapid rise in foreign land acquisition driven in part by increased value of land attracting private investment funds, often represent a de facto shift in land and water rights from local to foreign users. Bossio et al. 2012 Many civil society organizations raised concerns over the Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture, in part due to lack of social safeguards. Climate Smart Agriculture Concerns 2014
- 15. Institutional mechanisms for benefit sharing offer solutions “Payments for Environmental Services (or PES) is rapidly emerging as a policy option in Africa to reward farmers who adopt better environmental practices.” CCAFS & EcoAgriculture Partners 2010
- 16. Policy Agenda + Research Agenda Research Agenda Soil Science + Institution Building for soil carbon vulnerability for designing interventions for setting targets for measuring and monitoring for benefit sharing Initiative of the French INRA, CIRAD, IRD and the CGIAR Programs Policy Agenda Soil Organic Matter for food for energy for clean water for climate change mitigation
- 17. SOIL Organic Matter for Mitigation = SOIL FERTILITY = PRODUCTIVITY = FOOD SECURITY Does the equation work? You decide.
Editor's Notes
- Soussana, J.F, Saint-Macary, H., Chotte, J-L., Bellassen, V., Toillier, A. 2015. Carbon sequestration in soils. Towards an international ‘4 per mil’ research program and action plan. Scientific Concept Note, Side Event: ‘Carbon sequestration in soils: a challenge for food security and climate action’, 7 July 2015, UNESCO ‘Our Common Future under Climate Change’. Note this is CO2 emissions, not other GHG’s Assumes net CO2 emissions from land use change can be halted
- Soil Carbon Skeptics: 1st the estimate is unrealistic, much higher than other ‘optimistic’ estimates if you consider only croplands 2nd soils have finite capacity to hold soil organic matter, so not an increasing ‘wedge’ against CO2 rise, but rather only a short term contributor to mitigation – though this is certainly still valid! 3rd soil organic carbon is not permanent 4th carbon sequestration sequesters nutrients also, often ones already limiting for food production in degraded soils 5th we cannot measure and monitor it with sufficient robustness Sommer, R., Bossio, D. 2014. Dynamics and climate mitigation potential of soil organic carbon sequestration. Journal of Environmental Management. Vol 144, 83-87. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.05.017 Lal, R. 2010 Bioscience
- On the other hand, no doubt there is a huge empty sink in degraded agricultural soils and pastures! Lal, R. (2004). Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security, Science 304, 1623–1627. Lal, R. 2006. Land Degradation and Development Lal. R. 2009 Crop Science
- And now the equation SOM = Soil Fertility = Productivity = Food Security Answer to the skeptics is that soil organic matter is a win-win despite limitations, through the equation SOM = Food Security + other ecosystem services. It does not really matter if we do not achieve the mitigation level we aim for, including soil carbon in the set of options for CC mitigation will bring benefits
- This equation and promise is summarized in the concept of Climate Smart Agriculture, defined as the triple-win of adaptation, mitigation and food security. We are all familiar with the tripartite in more industrial agriculture, but does it work, and/or is even a valid concept for small holder farmers, especially in sub-Saharan Africa who’s primary concern is food security? I have a few examples where it can.
- Colombia Fisher MJ; Rao IM; Ayarza MA; Lascano CE; Sanz JI; Thomas RJ; Vera RR. 1994. Carbon storage by introduced deep-rooted grasses in the South American savannas. Nature 371:236-238. Fisher MJ; Braz SP; Dos Santos RSM; Urquiaga S; Alves BJR; and Boddey RM. 2007. Another dimension to grazing systems: Soil carbon. Tropical Grasslands (2007) Volume 41, 65–83
- Niger Cooper PJM, Cappiello S, Vermeulen SJ, Campbell BM, Zougmoré R, Kinyangi J. 2013. Large-scale implementation of adaptation and mitigation actions in agriculture. CCAFS Working Paper No. 50. CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Reij C. Tappan G. Smale M. (2009). Agroenvironmental Transformation in the Sahel – Another Kind of “Green Revolution”. IFPRI Discussion Paper 00914
- Entry JA, Sojka RE, Shewmaker GE. 2002. Management of Irrigated Agriculture to Increase Organic Carbon Storage in Soils. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 66:1957–1964.
- Thebo AL, Drechsel P, Lambin EF. 2014 Global assessment of urban and peri-urban agriculture: irrigated and rainfed croplands Environ. Res. Lett. 9 114002 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/114002
- On the plus side also is important progress that has already been made in our potential to measure and monitor soil carbon – which in the past has been a major justification for leaving it out of the solutions space Vågen TG, Winowiecki LA. 2013. Mapping of soil organic carbon stocks for spatially explicit assessments of climate change mitigation potential. Environ. Res. Lett. 8 015011 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/015011
- Winowiecki, L., Vagen, T-G., Huising, J., 2015. Effects of land cover on ecosystem services in Tanzania: a spatial assessment of soil organic carbon. Geoderma, doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2015.03.010.
- Sommer, R., Mukalama, J., Kihara, J., Koala, S. Winowiecki, L., Bossio, D. 2015. Nitrogen dynamics and nitrous oxide emissions in a long-term trial on integrated soil fertility management in Western Kenya. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems. 10.1007/s10705-015-9693-6.
- Perhaps the biggest concern is that without strong social institutions, increased value of soil carbon will lead to reduced access to land for smallholders, threatening and not strengthening their food security. Lee, J., Martin, A., Kristjanson, P., Wollenberg, E. 2015 Implications on equity in agricultural carbon market projects: a gendered analysis of access, decision making, and outcomes. Environ Plan A, doi: 10.1177/0308518X15595897 Bossio, D.; Erkossa, T.; Dile, Y.; McCartney, M.; Killiches, F. and Hoff, H. 2012. Water implications of foreign direct investment in Ethiopia’s agricultural sector. Water Alternatives 5(2): 223-242 http://www.climatesmartagconcerns.info/english.html
- Nairobi Water Fund is a public/private partnership that has created an institutional framework – a charitable trust – to support upper watershed management that benefits downstream water users This is a good example of institutional mechanism that can support equitable outcomes from investments aimed at global benefits of soil carbon REDD experience very important in this respect Nairobi Water Fund: http://ciat.cgiar.org/news-2-2/africas-first-water-fund-to-tackle-rising-threats-to-food-security-water-and-energy-supplies
- We strongly support the 4/1000 initiative, and believe it can have tremendous positive impact on climate change mitigation, adaptation and food security. It represents a political agenda that has been lacking, and brings agriculture into perspective as part of the solution to climate change. Aggressive implementation will be required to achieve the ambitious goals.