Global CA-CoP CONSERVATION AGRICULTURE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

for sustainable agriculture and land management


Dear Subscribers,

Please see herebelow that latest European Soil Data Centre Newsletter No.123 (Jul - Aug 2020).

Apologies for any cross-posting.

Amir Kassam

Moderator

Global CA-CoP

e-mail: [log in to unmask]

URL: http://www.fao.org/conservation-agriculture

 

Conservation Agriculture is an ecosystem approach to regenerative sustainable agriculture and land management based on the practical application of context-specific and locally adapted three interlinked principles of: (i) Continuous no or minimum mechanical soil disturbance (no-till seeding/planting and weeding, and minimum soil disturbance with all other farm operations including harvesting);  (ii) permanent maintenance of soil mulch cover (crop biomass, stubble and cover crops); and (iii) diversification of cropping system (economically, environmentally and socially adapted rotations and/or sequences and/or associations involving annuals and/or perennials, including legumes and cover crops). These practices are complemented with other good agricultural production and land management practices.
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Subject: European Soil Data Centre Newsletter No.123 (Jul - Aug 2020) - https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/public_path/newsletter/202003.pdf
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ESDAC: http://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu     ESDAC Newsletter No 123 (July - August 2020)

Projections of Global soil erosion by water (2015-2070)

We use the latest projections of climate and land use change to assess potential global soil erosion rates by water to address policy questions. Three alternative (2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) RCP scenarios were used and resulted in a potential increase of global soil erosion rate by 30-66% by 2070. The Global South is estimated to bear the brunt of the erosion. Rich countries with high fertiliser use and moderate climates can expect erosion at a low­er rate. Current conservation agriculture practices will only reduce the projected soil ero­sion rate by 5%.  The study has published recently in PNAS. Data are available in ESDAC.

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/global-soil-erosion-water-2070

Carbon mitigation potential and radiative agricultural land management

To reach the Paris climate targets, the mitigation capacity needs to be maximized across all components of the Earth system, especially land. Mitigation actions through land management, such as cover crops in agricultural soils, are often evaluated in terms of their carbon sequestra­tion potential, while radiative forcing related to surface albedo changes is often ignored. The aim of this study was to assess the mitigation potential of cover crops, both as changes in bio­genic greenhouse gas fluxes (CO2 and N2O) and albedo-driven radiative forcing at the top of the atmosphere. To achieve this, we have integrated a biogeochemistry model framework running on approximately 8,000 locations across the European Union with detailed soil data, supple­mented with time series of albedo measurements derived from satellite remote sensing.

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/carbon-mitigation-potential-and-radiative-agricultural-land-management

Global phosphorus losses due to soil erosion

The world’s food production depends directly on phosphorus. We combine spatially distrib­uted global soil erosion estimates (only considering sheet and rill erosion by water) with spatially distributed global P content for cropland soils to assess global soil P loss. The world’s soils are currently being depleted in P in spite of high chemical fertilizer input. Afri­ca , South America and Eastern Europe have the highest P depletion rates. Agricultural soils worldwide will be depleted by between 4–19 kg ha−1 yr−1, with average losses of P due to erosion by water contributing over 50% of total P losses. The study has published in Nature Communications and the data are available in ESDAC.

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/global-phosphorus-losses-due-soil-erosion

Sustainable soil management within the European Green Deal

The new European Green Deal has the ambition to make the European Union the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. The European Commission presented an ambitious package of measures within the Biodiversity Strategy 2030, the Farm to Fork and the European Climate Law including ac­tions to protect our soils. The Farm to Fork strategy addresses soil pollution with 50% reduction in use of chemical pesticides by 2030 and aims 20% reduction in fertilizer use plus a decrease of nutri­ent losses by at least 50%. The Biodiversity Strategy has the ambition to set a minimum of 30% of the EU’s land area as protected areas, limit urban sprawl, reduce the pesticides risk, bring back at least 10% of agricultural area under high-diversity landscape features, put forward the 25% of the EU’s agricultural land as organically farmed, progress in the remediation of contaminated sites, re­duce land degradation and plant more than three billion new trees. The maintenance of wetlands and the enhancement of soil organic carbon are also addressed in the European Climate Law.

More Details

Download the ESDAC Newsletter: PDF Format. Feedback: [log in to unmask]

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