Participatory agricultural soil security index for Mexico: Regional disparities and implications for food production

The long-term sustainability of Australian agriculture is fundamentally constrained by the capacity, condition, availability, and governance of soil resources. Australian soils are among the oldest and most weathered globally, highly heterogeneous, and often slow or effectively irreversible to recover once degraded. Traditional approaches centred on soil health, while valuable at paddock scale, are insufficient to address national-scale challenges related to spatial variability, data continuity, economic valuation, and policy integration. This paper examines soil security as a policy-relevant framework for supporting more sustainable Australian agriculture. Building on the dimensions of soil security (capacity, condition, capital, connectivity, and codification), we synthesise recent Australian case studies to show how soil security extends beyond soil health to integrate biophysical properties, digital soil infrastructure, socio-economic value, and governance mechanisms. Drawing on recent Australian case studies, this review identifies advances in digital soil mapping, national soil assessments, economic valuation of soil capital, stakeholder connectivity, and emerging policy frameworks, while also identifying persistent gaps in regulation, data standardisation, and institutional coordination. The paper argues that soil security can help operationalise 3-N agriculture—Net-Zero, Nature-Positive, and Nutrient-Balanced systems—by translating sustainability goals into spatially explicit, place-based decisions grounded in soil realities. By explicitly accounting for soil capacity limits, condition trajectories, capital value, information flows, and codified rules, soil security can support more realistic climate mitigation strategies, targeted nature-positive interventions, and durable nutrient security outcomes. We conclude that embedding soil security more explicitly within Australian agricultural research, policy, and governance would strengthen efforts to deliver productive, resilient, and socially legitimate food and fibre systems. Without soil security, sustainability frameworks may remain difficult to operationalise consistently; with soil security, they can be translated more effectively into measurable, place-based, and durable decisions.

Agricultural land consolidation (ALC) is an effective tool to ensure national food security. The current ALC is a government‐led systematic behavior with regional characteristics, most ALC types are classified according to difficulty without considering the safety of soil systems, resulting in randomness in the site selection of projects. Given the soil complexity, ensuring soil security (SS) is a prerequisite for efficiently completing ALC. ALC that gives full play to the soil's functional advantages is an effective means of securing SS. The main goal of this study is to establish a new set of technical processes for classifying the types of ALC from the perspective of SS, including the agricultural SS evaluation system and the identification method of land‐improvable limiting factors. We used a generalized mean model to evaluate and analyze SS in multiple dimensions and identified 11 combinations of limiting factors in Wen County through the k‐means clustering method. The combination of the limiting factor clustering area with the SS spatial distribution patterns guided five ALC types. When compared using the spatial pattern comparison method, the new ALC guideline avoids the singularity of ALC types, selects the field patch as the evaluation and decision‐making unit, and improves the accuracy of land management measures. The results indicate that incorporating SS into ALC policy planning and decision‐making can provide complex and multifaceted knowledge of factors affecting SS, and potential solutions to make agricultural soils safer, enabling higher quality and sustainability of agricultural land use.

Soil security underpins sustainable agriculture and land restoration in sub-Saharan Africa, yet empirical evidence on what shapes farmers’ understanding of it remains limited. This study investigates the socioeconomic and institutional factors influencing soil-security awareness and perceived importance among 667 smallholder farmers in Ghana. It represents the first empirical application of the McBratney five-dimension framework to analyze farmers’ cognitive understanding of soil security in Africa. Using hierarchical logistic regression, linear regression, and structural-equation modeling, we examined the effects of education, agricultural-extension access, regional location, and workshop participation. Results show that 63% of farmers were aware of soil security, rating its importance highly at 4.01 out of 5 (SD = 1.14). Education emerged as the most powerful factor, substantially increasing both the likelihood of awareness (OR = 2.95, 95% CI [1.82, 4.93]) and importance ratings (β = 0.66, 95% CI [0.45, 0.86]), likely reflecting enhanced information access and cognitive framing. Access to extension services and workshop attendance also significantly improved awareness, underscoring their policy relevance. Mediation analysis indicated that extension contact accounted for approximately 4% of education’s total effect on awareness. Regional disparities were notable: farmers in the Northeast region had 75% lower odds of awareness than those in Ashanti, possibly reflecting infrastructural and institutional limitations. Awareness concentrated on practical dimensions such as Condition (37.9%) and Capital (29.7%), while institutional (Codification 4.6%) and ecological (Capability 3.1%) aspects were least recognized. Policies combining education with participatory extension and training can strengthen soil-security stewardship among Ghanaian smallholders.

Sustainable management of agricultural land requires not only an accurate assessment of the biophysical status of the soil but also estimates of the social and economic aspects of the soil. This paper focuses on soil security mapping of an approximately 80 000 km 2 agricultural area in middle‐eastern China. We examined a digital soil assessment framework in mapping soil security and its five dimensions (capability, condition, capital, connectivity and codification) using digital soil maps and environmental variables. The main objective is to improve the understanding of soil protection in agricultural practices. Soil and environmental variables were coded as indicator values based on their functions, and three averaging models were used to integrate the indicators for soil security mapping. Results show that agricultural land in the study area currently has a high potential to achieve the crop production function, while there is still lack of sufficient social connectivity. Most of agricultural land has been properly protected by the public policy. More than half of the agricultural land has high security for cropping, while there is no unsecured soil. In general, most of the agricultural lands have already been well developed for cropping. The low soil security mainly contributes to the lack of proper connection to the soil. The findings suggest that digital soil security assessment is highly recommended for guiding sustainable development of agricultural land, because it could provide the knowledge of factors affecting soil security from complex multifaceted dimensions, and potential solutions to make agriculture soil more secure.

This study examined the impact of water scarcity on food security in Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. It explores how limited water availability affects food accessibility and agricultural production, and identifies coping strategies employed by smallholder farmers. Using a descriptive survey design, a sample of 400 respondents was selected through Taro Yamane’s formula. Data were collected via field surveys, interviews, and secondary sources. The study highlights seasonal patterns of water scarcity and its direct and indirect effects on farming activities, particularly the cultivation of rice, yam, maize, and vegetables. Findings show that during the dry season, rivers, wells, and ponds dry up, disrupting irrigation and livestock watering. Farmers' heavy reliance on erratic rainfall, combined with environmental degradation, poor infrastructure, and limited institutional support, significantly reduces food availability and nutritional quality. Women and children bear a disproportionate burden, often spending hours fetching water, which affects household welfare and productivity. The study also revealed policy and governance gaps, including limited access to irrigation technologies and underinvestment in water infrastructure. It recommended integrated solutions such as small-scale irrigation, community-based water harvesting, climate-smart agriculture, and gender-sensitive water policies. These measures are essential for enhancing adaptive capacity, improving food security, and promoting sustainable rural development in Ikwo and similar agro-ecological regions

This study examined the impact of water scarcity on food security in Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. It explores how limited water availability affects food accessibility and agricultural production, and identifies coping strategies employed by smallholder farmers. Using a descriptive survey design, a sample of 400 respondents was selected through Taro Yamane’s formula. Data were collected via field surveys, interviews, and secondary sources. The study highlights seasonal patterns of water scarcity and its direct and indirect effects on farming activities, particularly the cultivation of rice, yam, maize, and vegetables. Findings show that during the dry season, rivers, wells, and ponds dry up, disrupting irrigation and livestock watering. Farmers' heavy reliance on erratic rainfall, combined with environmental degradation, poor infrastructure, and limited institutional support, significantly reduces food availability and nutritional quality. Women and children bear a disproportionate burden, often spending hours fetching water, which affects household welfare and productivity. The study also revealed policy and governance gaps, including limited access to irrigation technologies and underinvestment in water infrastructure. It recommended integrated solutions such as small-scale irrigation, community-based water harvesting, climate-smart agriculture, and gender-sensitive water policies. These measures are essential for enhancing adaptive capacity, improving food security, and promoting sustainable rural development in Ikwo and similar agro-ecological regions

The Australian National Soil Research, Development and Extension Strategy identifies soil security as a foundation for the current and future productivity and profitability of Australian agriculture. Current agricultural production is attenuated by soil degradation. Future production is highly dependent on the condition of Australian soils. Soil degradation in Australia is dominated in its areal extent by soil erosion. We reiterate the use of soil erosion as a reliable indicator of soil condition/quality and a practical measure of soil degradation. We describe three key phases of soil degradation since European settlement, and show a clear link between inappropriate agricultural practices and the resultant soil degradation. We demonstrate that modern agricultural practices have had a marked effect on reducing erosion. Current advances in agricultural soil management could lead to further stabilization and slowing of soil degradation in addition to improving productivity. However, policy complacency towards soil degradation, combined with future climate projections of increased rainfall intensity but decreased volumes, warmer temperatures and increased time in drought may once again accelerate soil degradation and susceptibility to erosion and thus limit the ability of agriculture to advance without further improving soil management practices. Monitoring soil degradation may indicate land degradation, but we contend that monitoring will not lead to soil security. We propose the adoption of a triaging approach to soil degradation using the soil security framework, to prioritise treatment plans that engage science and agriculture to develop practices that simultaneously increase productivity and improve soil condition. This will provide a public policy platform for efficient allocation of public and private resources to secure Australia’s soil resource.

Agricultural soils in intensive farming sustain high crop production yields but endanger other regulating ecosystem services. Strengthening the simultaneous delivery of multiple soil functions is therefore essential to achieve high crop yields while lowering the environmental impact. We investigated how this so-called soil multifunctionality is related to management intensity in conventional and organic arable farming, and to specific practices regarding e.g. crop rotation, fertilization or tillage. We furthermore explored whether soil organic carbon and soil microbiotic parameters could explain relationships between agricultural management and soil functioning. We collected 57 soil samples in Dutch arable fields and interviewed farmers about their farm management. Soil multifunctionality was measured by aggregating 9 indicators of different functions such as nutrient cycling, soil structure, and disease suppression. We characterized the species composition and abundance of the soil microbial community with 15 parameters, and soil carbon quantity and quality with 16 parameters.We show that increasing management intensity is associated with declining soil multifunctionality across all fields, whereas multifunctionality was not related with organic vs. conventional farming. Greater soil multifunctionality was also associated with less frequent inversion tillage and higher frequency of grass-legume cover cropping. Bacterial biomass and total soil organic carbon content, respectively, were the strongest biotic and abiotic predictors of soil multifunctionality. No other biotic parameters were related to soil multifunctionality, whereas the majority of soil carbon parameters were significantly related. Our results suggest that reducing management intensity will enhance soil multifunctionality in both conventional and organic farming systems, so that in highly intensive and productive agricultural systems, the paradigm of sustainable intensification should be replaced by “productive de-intensification.”

<p>Changes in agricultural management practices to enhance soil carbon (C) sequestration while maintaining crop productivity are a key opportunity to reduce the impact of humans on the environment, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes to the atmosphere and nutrient leaching to aquatic ecosystems without compromising food and soil security. Amongst them, enhanced weathering (EW) of silicate minerals is a promising negative emission technology that can be associated with multiple co-benefits for crop production by spreading silicate minerals on arable soils (i.e. increase in crop yields, restoration of soil base cations and micro- and macronutrient stocks). A growing number of EW studies are focused on soil C sequestration and the effects on crop production. Yet, little is known about the impact of such management practices on GHG sink/source behaviour of agricultural soils and the soil bacterial communities involved.</p><p>In this context, winter wheat (<em>Triticum aestivum</em>) was grown in 20 mesocosms undergoing 4 different treatments: acid soil (pH ~5) with or without basalt addition (50 tones ha<sup>-1</sup>) and alkaline soil (pH ~7) with or without basalt addition. Soil GHG emissions (CO<sub>2</sub>, CH<sub>4</sub> and N<sub>2</sub>O) were measured at six different time points spread over the growing season (from March to June). Measurements included anaerobic conditions (i.e. immediately after irrigation events) and aerobic condition (i.e. in-between events). Simultaneously, soil was sampled for the study of the soil bacterial community.</p><p>We found that basalt application led to an increase in crop yield in acid soils, while it decreased the yield in alkaline soils. GHG emissions were not reduced by the basalt amendment. Soil CO<sub>2 </sub>fluxes peaked in-between irrigation events and were mainly influenced by the soil pH, being 2-fold higher in alkaline soils than in acid ones. Irrigation events increased both CH<sub>4</sub> and N<sub>2</sub>O fluxes. Soils acted as CH<sub>4 </sub>sink in-between irrigation events, but became sources shortly after those (up to 5-fold higher). While it was hypothesised that higher pH would result in an improved denitrification completion, the increase in pH induced by basalt application did not reduce soil N<sub>2</sub>O fluxes. Higher N<sub>2</sub>O fluxes were observed during irrigation events and in basalt-enriched mesocosms, as a result of combined enhanced nitrification and denitrification processes. Despite the modest effects of EW on soil GHG emissions, soil bacterial communities were very different for acid and alkaline soils, and varied significantly with basalt amendment and throughout time.</p><p>Overall, this study showed that EW resulted in an improved wheat yield and altered soil bacterial community in acid soils. However, the general effect of EW on soil GHG emissions was modest and complex.</p>

Heavy metals in agricultural soils not only affect the food security and soil security, but also endanger the human health through the food chain. Based on the incorporation of index analysis, positive matrix factorization (PMF), self-organizing map (SOM), and geostatistical methods, this research performed the assessment of source apportionment and ecological and health risks of soil heavy metals in Hulan River Watershed, Northeastern China. According to the Pollution Load Index (PLI), 83.08% of the soil samples were slightly or mildly polluted, and 1.54% of the soil samples were severely polluted. The ecological risk index (EI) showed that about 80.77% and 60.77% of the soil samples were beyond the low risk level for Hg and Cd, respectively. In this research, the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk indices for children were higher than adult males and adult females. Four potential sources were revealed based on the PMF and SOM analysis including atmospheric deposition and industrial emission; transportation source; agricultural source; and a combination of agricultural, industrial, and natural sources. Considerable and high ecological risk from Hg existed in the area close to the coal steam-electric plant, and considerable and high ecological risk from Cd existed in the Hulan River estuary area. The eastern part of the study area experienced higher non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks for adults and children than the western part of the study area. The source apportionment and ecological and health risk mapping provide important role in reducing pollution sources. Zonal pollution control and soil restoration measures should be performed in the areas with high ecological and health risks.

Assessing the condition and capability of soils in cocoa districts of Ghana using geovisualization

In Morocco, oasis ecosystems cover 15% of country’s lands and are bright spots of rich biodiversity and multi-functionality but hot spots of land degradation, social vulnerability and water and food insecurity. Hence there is a need to shift from assessing risks and hazards in these ecosystems to effectively capture key drivers and pursue solutions and measures to reduce vulnerability and enhance adaptive and productive capacity. In other terms, the food-environment dilemma requires urgently revitalizing these fragile agro-ecosystems in order to re-nurture the population, to strengthen society growth and food-related value chains and bring back resilience and sustainable development. In doing so, it is imperative to enforce, develop and encourage adoption of state of the art but adapted innovations and support knowledge sharing processes and approaches that drive implementation and up/deep scaling of innovations within ecosystems and by communities. A large array of innovations and technologies is emerging pertaining to advanced biotechnology, agro-ecology, smart-irrigation management, disease monitoring, control and safety, food industry, livestock, soil security, landscape management and institutional policy and governance. The paper seeks to present an integrated view of these stock takes and how they can help in addressing simultaneously climate change and food security, spatial prioritization, closing gaps, strong interfacing of society and ecology and achieving land degradation neutrality.

Soil carbon sequestration has emerged as a critical strategy for mitigating climate change while enhancing agricultural sustainability and soil health. Agricultural soils contain a substantial proportion of terrestrial carbon, with the potential to act as either carbon sources or sinks depending on management practices. This review synthesizes current scientific understanding of the carbon sequestration potential of various agronomic practices, including conservation tillage, crop residue management, crop rotation, cover cropping, organic amendments, integrated farming systems, and agroforestry. These practices influence carbon dynamics through biological, physical, and chemical mechanisms that regulate carbon input, transformation, and stabilization in soil systems. Empirical evidence indicates that improved agronomic management can sequester approximately 0.2–1.0 Mg C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹, depending on soil type, climate, and cropping systems. The review further examines factors affecting sequestration efficiency, including soil texture, mineralogy, climatic variability, and management intensity, highlighting their interactive effects on soil organic carbon accumulation. Methods for measuring and estimating soil carbon, such as field sampling, laboratory analysis, simulation models, and remote sensing tools, are critically evaluated to address uncertainties in carbon accounting. The role of conservation agriculture and organic farming systems in enhancing long-term carbon storage is emphasized, along with their co-benefits in improving soil structure, water retention, nutrient availability, and microbial activity. Constraints such as economic limitations, adoption barriers, measurement challenges, and policy gaps are identified as key obstacles to large-scale implementation. Policy frameworks, carbon credit systems, and payment for ecosystem services are discussed as mechanisms to incentivize adoption of carbon-enhancing practices. Future research priorities include long-term experimental studies, integration of advanced technologies such as precision agriculture and biotechnology, and development of region-specific strategies. The findings underscore the importance of integrated and sustainable agronomic approaches in optimizing soil carbon sequestration, contributing to climate change mitigation, and ensuring resilient agricultural systems.

Effects of agricultural land types on microplastic abundance: A nationwide meta-analysis in China

Soil security for developing and sustaining cocoa production in Papua New Guinea