Farmers hold the key to restoring the world’s soils, says Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science at the Ohio State University and a Goodwill Ambassador for the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA). But their ability to fulfill this role requires food and agriculture systems stakeholders to economically support their efforts.
“We have 40 percent of the earth seriously degraded by erosion, by salinity, by waterlogging, nutrient depletion, depletion of organic matter,” Lal stated during a fireside chat with Jose Mai, Minister of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise of Belize that IICA and Food Tank co-hosted at the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan.
And when the soils are degraded, Lal warns, food quality, yields, and ultimately communities suffer. “People are the mirror image of the soil they live on.” To make soils more productive, “the farmers are the key players.”
“The small farmers of the Americas, want, desire, hope to help improve the environment we live in,” Mai says. “But help the farmer to help the situation.”
Lal notes that food producers are often forced to bear great risks when they change their agricultural practices. And although the world demands a great amount from them, Lal and Mai say that they receive little in return. That’s why Lal advocates for compensation to be given to farmers for their “ecosystem services.”
Lal also calls for greater cooperation between farmers and policymakers, researchers, and the private sector. If these relationships can be developed with producers at the center, “this transformation [of agricultural systems] will happen,” he says.
Through IICA’s Living Soils of the Americas initiative, which Lal leads, efforts are underway to foster these connections in North and South America. Bringing together technical cooperation, governmental, international and civil society organizations, and agri-food businesses, the initiative employs land management practices used to boost carbon sequestration and slow land degradation.
Both Lal and Mai underscore the urgency of this work, with Mai stating that the farmers needed support “yesterday.” Still, Lal remains optimistic. If policymakers, the next generation of farmers, and institutions like IICA can continue to rehabilitate soils, he believes “we have a bright future ahead.”
Watch the full the conversation with Rattan Lal and Jose Mai from COP29 below, and catch more of the programming at IICA’s Pavilion during the Conference by clicking HERE.
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Photo courtesy of Steven Weeks, Unsplash
