Agri soils have lost 30-75% inherent organic carbon pool: ICAR paper

Vijay Mohan

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Chandigarh, February 12

With climate change and global warming impacting soil composition and crop production, scientists have stressed upon the need for increased carbon sequestration to mitigate environmental degradation and address food security.

Carbon sequestration is being increasingly viewed by experts as one of the crucial strategies to address challenging issues of climate change effects, besides imparting sustainability to productivity.

According to a paper published by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), the results of a current technical review have revealed that agricultural soils have lost about 30–75 per cent of their inherent soil organic carbon (SOC) pool, which is “quite alarming”.

In agricultural land use systems, increased carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere is repeated through frequent cultivation of croplands, crop residues, biomass burning, shifting cultivation, cultivation of low biomass producing crop cultivars, land degradation and deforestation.

“A combination of good crop production practices supported with resource conservation measures, agro-forestry, forest and grassland management will be useful in enhancing carbon sequestration and its long-term stability and sustainability,” the paper states.

“Adoption of some suggested management practices like conservation tillage, cover crops, intercropping, residue retention, inclusion of organic manures in nutrient management, adequate irrigation, erosion control measures, multi-tier cropping, agro-forestry systems, crop and tree biomass recycling may permit stable assimilation of soil organic carbon for long period,” the paper suggests.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its current report stated that to contain warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, there would be a need to reduce the global net man-made carbon dioxide emissions by about 45 per cent by 2030 from 2010 levels and further to reach ‘net zero’ by 2050.

Stressing that land-use type is a very important factor in controlling organic matter present in soils as it alters the quantity as well as quality of organic residue, its decomposition rate, the phenomenon of stabilisation, the paper points out that “Agricultural land use, which involves the cultivation of soil, may alter the total quantity of soil organic matter and its protecting processes.” “If there is excess of carbon, it will result in carbon being lost as quickly as it is added,” the paper cautions.

Addressing the challenge

Carbon sequestration is being increasingly viewed by experts as one of the crucial strategies to address the challenging issue of climate change, besides imparting sustainability to productivity. It can mitigate environmental degradation and address food security.