Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the global food supply chain and exacerbated the problem of food and nutritional insecurity. Here we outline soil strategies to strengthen local food production systems, enhance their resilience, and create a circular economy focused on soil restoration through carbon sequestration, on-farm cycling of nutrients, minimizing environmental pollution, and contamination of food. Smart web-based geospatial decision support systems (S-DSSs) for land use planning and management is a useful tool for sustainable development. Forensic soil science can also contribute to cold case investigations, both in providing intelligence and evidence in court and in ascertaining the provenance and safety of food products. Soil can be used for the safe disposal of medical waste, but increased understanding is needed on the transfer of virus through pedosphere processes. Strengthening communication between soil scientists and policy makers and improving distance learning techniques are critical for the post-COVID restoration.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global food and nutritional security by disrupting the food supply chain from the farm gate to the household
The most immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on soil and vice versa are through human activities (Figure 2) resulting from a decline in human consumption giving rise to surplus food most immediate impacts
In addition to the primacy of human health care, the maintenance of all critical infrastructures and, in particular, the supply of the population with food and natural products from agriculture, forestry, and fisheries has the highest priority, and it has increasingly been challenged under the COVID-19
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global food and nutritional security by disrupting the food supply chain from the farm gate to the household. People are shifting towards greater consumption of heavily processed food, with fresh fruits and vegetables less available and/or more expensive in conventional supply chains This could create vicious circles: diabetes and other diet-related non-communicable diseases are risk factors for COVID-19 mortality [2]. Remote and food insecure areas are susceptible to transportation challenges, where the majority of food in grocery stores is flown into the communities [4] In view of such global developments, soil plays a central role as a production factor in individual agricultural enterprises, and as a basic condition for the resilience and productivity of agriculture in times of crisis. The specific objective of this article is to deliberate the importance of sustainable soil management and restoration to recover from the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through improved sustainable food production and distribution to minimize vulnerability to hunger and malnutrition
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