UNL researchers advance Soil Health Cycle concept
UNL researchers advance Soil Health Cycle concept Nebraska Today
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Conceptualizing the Soil Health Cycle for Agricultural Sustainability
Lincoln, Neb. — Inspired by an extension event survey comment, Dr. Bijesh Maharjan, Associate Professor & Extension Specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Panhandle Research, Extension, and Education Center, has developed the concept of the soil health cycle (SHC) as an iterative soil health management cycle to achieve agricultural sustainability.
Origins of the Soil Health Cycle
The term ‘Soil Health Cycle’ was mentioned by a participant during the 2023 Nebraska Soil Health School event at UNL Haskell Ag Lab in Concord, NE. Dr. Maharjan came across this term in an anonymous survey comment and was intrigued by its potential. Further research led him to discover a brief mention of the concept on Corteva Agriscience’s website. This discovery sparked a collaborative effort with co-authors to develop the concept and resulted in the publication of their manuscript.
The Soil Health Cycle
The Soil Health Cycle (SHC) is a feedback cycle in soil health management that encompasses a series of interdependent entities and steps. It involves human dimensions that influence decisions on agricultural practices, their impact assessment, and making inferences to iterate the process. The SHC takes into account site-specific resource constraints and complex agroecosystems to achieve iterative soil health improvement. Unlike soil nutrient cycles, which focus on specific nutrients and their transformations, phases, and transport pathways, the SHC is more analogous to management cycles like the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. This cycle provides a structure for iterative testing of changes to improve the quality of systems.
Components of the Soil Health Cycle
The SHC offers a systematic approach to integrating soil health practices and measuring their benefits in terms of productivity, profitability, and environmental impact. These benefits have cumulative effects on policy, economic factors, and human dimensions, which drive the cycle. The cycle consists of four interdependent components:
- Human Dimension
- Agricultural Practices
- Soil Health
- Ecosystem Services and Economic Benefits
“Comprehensive soil health management involves several interdependent components, and each of them is crucial for achieving agricultural sustainability,” says Dr. Maharjan. “It is an iterative process that evolves over time.”
Linking Soil Health Practices to Soil Function Outcomes
In addition to presenting and justifying the feedback cycle in soil health management, Dr. Maharjan and his co-authors reviewed scientific literature to determine the current state of research on the effects of soil health practices on soil health indicators (SHIs) and soil function outcomes. This information is a key piece in the feedback cycle.
Over the past two decades, there has been a growing body of literature on soil health. Evaluating the impacts of soil health practices on SHIs is a preliminary step in enhancing their adoption. To increase confidence in the causality of improved SHIs, it is important to link them to soil functions such as productivity, sustainability, and profitability. Presentations on these links can inform policy, incentive programs, and initiatives that influence the human dimension in adopting and sustaining soil health practices. Therefore, soil health experiments and reports should include one or more of the soil function benefits, specifically crop productivity (for food security), environmental quality and stewardship (for climate adaptation and mitigation), and economics (for farm profitability and social equity).
Having an extensive database allows researchers to analyze confounding factors and provide contextual recommendations for soil health practices. The SHC encompasses all interdependent components and steps in soil health management and acknowledges the challenges in promoting and sustaining these practices. It emphasizes the need to bridge the gaps between practices, SHIs, and soil function benefits.
The manuscript detailing the Soil Health Cycle can be downloaded here.
SDGs, Targets, and Indicators in the Article
1. SDGs Addressed or Connected to the Issues Highlighted in the Article
- SDG 2: Zero Hunger – The article discusses soil health management in agriculture, which is crucial for achieving food security and eliminating hunger.
- SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production – The article emphasizes the need for sustainable agricultural practices and soil health management to ensure responsible production and consumption.
- SDG 13: Climate Action – The article mentions the importance of soil health practices for climate adaptation and mitigation, contributing to efforts to combat climate change.
- SDG 15: Life on Land – The article focuses on soil health management and its impact on ecosystem services and benefits, highlighting the importance of preserving and restoring terrestrial ecosystems.
2. Specific Targets Under Those SDGs Based on the Article’s Content
- SDG 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production.
- SDG 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.
- SDG 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning.
- SDG 15.3: By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought, and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world.
3. Indicators Mentioned or Implied in the Article to Measure Progress towards the Identified Targets
- Indicator 2.4.1: Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture.
- Indicator 12.4.1: Number of parties to international multilateral environmental agreements on hazardous waste, including their disposal.
- Indicator 13.3.1: Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning into primary, secondary, and tertiary curricula.
- Indicator 15.3.1: Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area.
Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators
| SDGs | Targets | Indicators |
|---|---|---|
| SDG 2: Zero Hunger | Target 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production. | Indicator 2.4.1: Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture. |
| SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production | Target 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment. | Indicator 12.4.1: Number of parties to international multilateral environmental agreements on hazardous waste, including their disposal. |
| SDG 13: Climate Action | Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning. | Indicator 13.3.1: Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning into primary, secondary, and tertiary curricula. |
| SDG 15: Life on Land | Target 15.3: By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought, and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world. | Indicator 15.3.1: Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area. |
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Fuente: ianrnews.unl.edu
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