Soil Carbon Sequestration: A Step towards Sustainability

Abstract

Nowadays, sustainable agriculture is a major concern of the whole world, all leading agricultural countries like China, USA and India etc. are working together in several organizations such as FAO, World Food Organisation to overcome the problem of environmental health and food security in upcoming years to meet the food demand goal in 2050 in sustainable manner. Carbon present in soil naturally is termed as soil carbon which is directly related to organic matter present in soil, higher the soil carbon more will be the crop yield. Most of the soil carbon has been released in the atmosphere due to conversion of uncultivated land into cultivated agricultural land. Bringing back that released carbon back to the soil with several methods is known as soil carbon sequestration. In this paper, relation of soil carbon sequestration has been discussed with respect to organic farming, natural farming respectively. Changes carried out in traditional agronomical practices have potential in enhancement of soil carbon sequestration. Practices such as conservation tillage, growing cover crop, proper nutrient management, residue management etc. have significant capacity to sequester carbon in the soil, along with that various challenges which are being faced during carbon sequestration are also considered in this paper. Soil carbon sequestration is a temporary solution to Carbon dioxide enrichment, but it is challenging to operationalize due to obstacles such as measuring the soil's carbon stock, permanence, carbon pools, separation, and the soil's propensity to approach saturation levels. This chapter aims to raise knowledge of the capability of soils to absorb and store atmospheric carbon dioxide in long-lasting pools, reducing climate change.