Soil is a non-renewable resource considering its extremely slow pace of regeneration (Amundson et al., 2015). Soil management practice directly affects the world's soil resources, with huge implications for food security, human health, biodiversity, climate change and environmental quality (Bahram et al., 2018; Bampa et al., 2019; FAO, 2015). Because of anthropogenic activities and natural events, a third of all the world's land is now in a state of degradation (FAO, 2011), and approximately 24 billion metric tons of soil are lost each year globally (UNCCD, 2017). Soil pollution with heavy metals and pesticides is ubiquitous in many regions (FAO, 2018), threatening the realization of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (see Figure 1). Thus, greater adoption of sustainable soil use and management practice is critical for meeting the SDGs over the next decade (FAO, 2016). However, traditional disciplinary approaches may fail to meet this demand (Hou, Bolan, Tsang, Kirkham, & O’Connor, 2020). The importance of soil is increasingly acknowledged by the scientific community across a variety of disciplines. Searching the Clarivate Web of Science database for articles published in 2019 using ‘soil’ as a topic returns 53,690 articles, and 18,837 papers were published with soil in their title. These annual numbers have more than doubled over the last decade, representing a vast volume of scientific knowledge; however, only a very small portion of this knowledge may ever be extended to the end users, e.g. farmers, and the number of farmers being influenced is far from satisfactory. Ineffective adoption of new scientific research findings by farmers may be attributed to not only socio-economic factors, e.g. farmers’ educational level and access to research results, but also technical factors, e.g. how well researchers understand the complex soil–water–plant–climate systems of most interest to farmers (Bouma, 2019). Our editorial team at the journal of Soil Use and Management believes that sharing soil science knowledge provides a huge societal benefit. Knowledge sharing can ultimately change the perception and know-how of end users, thus promoting the adoption of sustainable soil use and management practice. In this paper, I intend to share some of the latest findings from our virtual special issue with the topic of ‘Sustainable Soil Use and Management: Knowledge Sharing and Adoption Behaviour’. The special issue contains 21 papers, covering a wide variety of topics including information technology and social media, advisory services and workshops, engaging with multiple stakeholders and multiple objectives, and adoption behaviour. Farmers tend to be geographically dispersed, making it difficult to share knowledge directly in a classroom setting. Therefore, it has been typical to extend soil information via advisory service providers who share scientific knowledge with farmers one-on-one, with behavioural change facilitated by the building of individual and close relationships. State and local governmental agencies can play critical roles in information transmittal processes (Jenkins, Beange, & Morris, 2019). However, in the current movement of sustainable soil management, advisory services also face special challenges owing to farmers’ desire for high-resolution soil information and practical step-by-step guidelines on a farm level, while sustainability is often achieved by integrating considerations across multiple temporal and spatial scales (Ingram & Mills, 2019). Workshops held by soil knowledge extension providers with farmers can help to empower them to carry out their own soil testing (Lobry de Bruyn, 2019), which then facilitates better interaction between farmers and extension providers to the benefit of both parties, for example enhancing farmers’ capacity for soil health assessment as well as helping extension providers to tailor training programmes with local knowledge. However, it should be noted that knowledge gained from such workshops can diminish over time (Andersson & Orgill, 2019). One interesting dynamic introduced by soil advisors is that they tend to digest information from scientific studies and modelling exercises, with local parameters incorporated, and then come up with ‘rules-of-thumb’ which give estimates that are ‘roughly right’. They would then omit more robust soil data and decision support systems (Schwenke, Beange, Cameron, Bell, & Harden, 2019). Web-based information technology allows the transmittal and sharing of soil knowledge at much lower cost than traditional knowledge sharing approaches. Webinars can be used to extend soil knowledge to government advisory services, private advisors and landholders (Jenkins et al., 2019). Online repositories can store large amounts of soil and landscape information collected from field studies, training sessions and land resource assessments (Imhof, Heemskerk, & Cox, 2019). Sharing information online can overcome spatial barriers, transmitting information to both local and international clients by the single click of a mouse. In the emerging era of big data and machine learning, a promising direction is to build public–private partnerships in which data collected by governments, companies and farmers are uploaded to inter-operable and open-source platforms (Robinson et al., 2019). This mechanism allows for the build-up of massive amounts of data because of the expanding nature of the ‘Internet of things’. Large data sets subsequently allow smart algorithms to derive optimum management strategies. This also provides a basis for precision agriculture and enhanced food security (Gebbers & Adamchuk, 2010). Most recently, social media has been found to be a particularly useful tool for knowledge transfer. For example, brief messages on Twitter containing field visual evidence were found to be appealing to time-constrained farmers (Mills, Reed, Skaalsveen, & Ingram, 2019). Key influencers may emerge in this process, who are followed and respected by farmers on Twitter. Such ‘Twitter champions’ share scientific knowledge and hands-on experience with their farmer peers. This powerful dynamic could be even more influential if short video-sharing social networking services, e.g. TikTok, are adopted by farmers. Given the multifaceted nature of sustainability, promoting sustainable soil use and management practice may be more effective on social media platforms than linear traditional methods such as training workshops. Online tools can also enhance offline programmes. For example, in the state of North Dakota, USA, researchers formed a university extension programme to share knowledge among scientists, farmers and communication experts (Wick et al., 2019). The programme used a variety of online tools, including Twitter, YouTube and a webpage, in addition to offline Café talks to increase the programme participants’ exposure to soil knowledge. This example of a knowledge network, involving 156 individuals, was noted to increase sustainable soil use and management practice, e.g. interseeding and using cover crops for weed control for over 25% of the respondents. The creation, transmittal and use of scientific knowledge involves a range of stakeholders, including research funders, scientists, students, governments, advisors and farmers (Knox et al., 2019). Collaboration between the different actors represents a big challenge for governance (Bodin, 2017). Engaging with different stakeholders may require extension methods of varying strength and weakness (see Figure 2). In Switzerland, social learning videos were used to promote sustainable soil management practices. In the process, multiple-stakeholder engagement and collaboration formed the basis for both knowledge transformation, i.e. video making and knowledge transmittal (Fry & Thieme, 2019). Soil scientists can play a critical role in stakeholder engagement. A study in England suggested that scientists and experts not only create new knowledge, but also inspire, justify and legitimize sustainable soil use and management practice, creating a new social norm that encourages people to be ‘good farmers’ (Krzywoszynska, 2019). Participatory research methods can be particularly powerful for strengthening the engagement of multiple stakeholders and building greater trust with farmers (Bampa et al., 2019; Stoate, Jones, Crotty, Morris, & Seymour, 2019). Retired scientists and government experts in Australia have set a great example for stakeholder engagement and soil knowledge transfer (McInnes-Clarke, Jenkins, Rawson, & Murphy, 2019; Packer, Chapman, & Lawrie, 2019). The adoption of sustainable agricultural practice, e.g. agroecology and conservation agriculture, is critical for ensuring food security while protecting the environment. However, most pertaining studies have only considered the issue from an agronomic perspective, lacking consideration of farmer behaviour. Mugandani and Mafongoya (2019) surveyed 360 smallhold farmers in Zimbabwe, finding that, while 80% of the respondents relied on farming as their main source of income, only 10% had received any sort of formal education in agriculture. The authors identified a gap between knowledge of conservation agriculture and the perception of conservation agriculture, suggesting that changing farmers’ perception is more urgent for increasing sustainable soil management practice than simply feeding knowledge. In comparison, a study in England showed that approximately half (47.6%) of arable land was managed with minimum-till practice on top of 7% involving no tillage (Alskaf, Sparkes, Mooney, Sjögersten, & Wilson, 2020). It was also found that larger farms and those growing combinable crops tended to adopt reduced tillage practice. In order to further encourage adoption behaviour, the authors put forward several strategies, including more communication between scientists and farmers, financial support, continuous training and 'farmer champions' in a practical knowledge exchange network. New social norms which define what is a ‘good farmer’ can also encourage farmers to adopt sustainable soil use and management practices (Krzywoszynska, 2019). The UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) have become a central theme of international conversations surrounding the stewardship of planet Earth, as well as a key thrust for new scientific research. Unfortunately, soil security was missed from the list of 17 SDGs, likely because of the lack of representation of soil scientists in high-level policy talks. However, it is apparent that soil is directly pivotal for realizing 8 of the 17 SDGs, most particularly affecting the large number of smallholder farmers in the poorest countries. It is imperative to share scientific knowledge with this group and help drive them to adopt more sustainable behaviours in soil use and management. In the current information technology age, the amount of accessible information is growing exponentially. The challenge lies in changing perceptions and behaviour, rather than simply feeding greater amounts of knowledge to farmers. This poses a big question mark for scientists as to how they can make a bigger societal impact with their research. The Internet of things, big data, machine learning, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok all represent promising directions in which we may successfully drive sustainable soil use and management behaviour, and align better soil science with sustainability.