Economic dimensions of soil health practices that sequester carbon: Promising research directions

Abstract

Soil health is a key element in enhancing agricultural production, environmental sustainability, and food system resilience (Farnsworth 2015; Stevens 2018). The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) defines soil health as “the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans” (Pankhurst et al. 1997; Farnsworth 2015; Bowman et al. 2016). A common theme points to soil health as an indicator of the soil’s ability to support life, withstand environmental stresses, and endure as an important part of a resilient ecosystem. Because one of the key individual components of soil health is carbon (C) in organic matter (Idowu et al. 2009; Morrow et al. 2016), enhancing soil health also has a prominent role to play in addressing climate change (Stockmann et al. 2013; Schipanski et al. 2014; Paustian et al. 2016). Improving soil health is a natural climate solution (NCS) that increases C storage in soils (Poeplau and Don 2015; Griscom et al. 2017; Jian et al. 2020). Given soil health’s key role in sustaining agricultural productivity and enhancing C storage, there is significant interest in promoting …