DISCUSSION No. 124 • FSN Forum digest No. 1214 | | Online consultation for developing the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management | until 29 February 2016 | |
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| | | Dear Members, We are happy to share the first ten contributions to the online consultation for developing the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management. Our colleagues working for the Global Soil Partnership invite all those interested in soils to comment on the ‘Zero draft’ of the Voluntary Guidelines for Sustainable Soil Management (VGSSM), which have just been released. Comments are welcome both on the questions proposed in the topic note, available in English, French and Spanish, and directly on the draft document (using track change or comment mode). Can these guidelines help achieve sustainable soil management under different circumstances and contexts? Are they duly considering all the ecosystem services soils provide? Are they in line with the Sustainable Development Goals? We thank very much those of you who will take their time to read through this document and contribute to its improvement. Your FSN Forum team | |
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| | Daniel Dale, FAO Regional Office for Near East and North Africa, Egypt
| Daniel appreciates the guidelines and shares further comments on the draft attached to his contribution. |
| Emile Houngbo, Agricultural University of Ketou (UAK), Benin
| In his comment, Emile suggests that the guidelines should identify ways to face the obstacles to sustainable soil management worldwide. He shares a thesis where a theory on soil management under high land pressure is developed, emphasising the role of the farmers’ welfare state as an important determinant of sustainable soil management and agricultural productivity improvement. Read Emile's contribution here |
| Mubarak Abdalla, Sudan
| Mubarak finds the guidelines very useful and shares a few comments on the draft document attached to his comment. |
| Bernard Vanlauwe, IITA, Kenya
| Bernard observes that the draft places a lot of emphasis on Conservation Agriculture, while sustainable soil management should apply to all agricultural practices. This bias is also reflected in the selected references. Read Bernard's contribution |
| Olegario Muñiz, Soil Institute, Cuba
| Olegario proposes that the guidelines include a section addressing concrete ways to achieve sustainable soil management, via minimum regulatory frameworks, developing large scale programmes and establishing harmonised methodologies of assessment, among others. Read Olegario's contribution |
| José Luis Rubio, CIDE, Spain
| José appreciates the aims and scope of the guidelines and shares some specific concerns, among which the absence of dry land management and strategies / measures for combating desertification and the weakness in addressing urban and periurban soil aspects. Read José's contribution here |
| Patrick Bhekisisa Dlamini, Ministry of Agriculture, Swatziland
| Patricks' comments are reported in track change mode on the draft document and are mostly related to wording, attached to his post. |
| John Baker, Baker No-Tillage, New Zealand
| John shares resources on no-tillage practices in the context of sustainable soil management. Read John's contribution |
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