2015 International Year of Soils
7/21/2015

United Nations (UN) declared year 2015 as “International Year of Soils” with a resolution it took in December 2014. Following such resolution of UN General Assembly, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was designated to execute the activities related to the Year of Soils within the framework of Global Soil Partnership and UN Convention to Combat Desertification in cooperation with the member states.

FAO General Director José Graziano da Silva believes that, healthy soil is not only source of food, fuel and medical products, but also is one of the most critical components for the continuity of ecosystem. Soil has an important function in filtering of water, carbon cycle and carbon storing.

Today, 33% of the global soil sources are infertile. However, there are over 805 million people across the world, who face starvation and malnutrition. According to Silva, who points out that the population is increasing with every passing year and such increase necessitates a growth of about 60% in food production, protection of the soil is of vital importance for the future of human and all other lively beings. Therefore, Silva invites all people to take active role in protecting the soil during year 2015 in line with the target of sustainable development maintained for everyone and altogether.

FAO aims raising awareness within the scope of International Year of Soils

Declaration of 2015 as International Year of Soils aims to raise awareness in the whole world about the issue and minimize the adverse effects exposed by the soil. The targets set forth by FAO within the scope of International Year of Soils are as follows:

• Raising awareness among the civil society and decision makers;
• Educating the society;
• Supporting the implications, policies and actions which are necessary for utilization of soil sources in a sustainable manner;
• Incentivizing investment in sustainable soil management activities;
• Reinforcing initiatives affiliated with the sustainable development goals and development agenda after 2015;
• Resorting to quick capacity building on collection of soil information and monitoring such information at all levels.

Non-renewable resource: Soil!

Approximately 13 billion hectare of the earth’s surface is covered with land. And 5 billion of it, corresponding to 37% of the whole earth surface consists of agricultural lands. Study of FAO titled “World Agriculture: Towards 2010” indicates that there is a potential land of 1.8 hectares, which will allow for boosting the agricultural areas in the upcoming process, apart from the aforementioned lands. On the other hand, across the world, each year a significant volume of soil loses its capacity of being an agricultural land due to reasons such as erosion, salinization and intense utilization.

The researches point out that the disrupted agricultural lands are under the influence of water erosion by 55.7%, wind erosion by 27.6% and chemical changes by 12.5%. Apart from these, given the factors such as increase in world population, climate change and global warming, the threat against the future and sustainability of soil utilization reaches remarkable levels. Indeed, agricultural lands are occupied rapidly for purposes such as settlement, road, airport building, industry etc. The decreases in the last decade in size of agricultural land per capita is about 15% in developed agriculture countries and 40% in developing countries. According to FAO data, while agricultural land per capita was 0.5 hectare in 1960s, it shrank to 0.23 hectare by 2000s. It is foreseen that such figure will decline to 0.15 hectare by 2050, meaning a decrease of 3.5 times within 90 years.

Although especially the developing technology and opportunities offer alternative options in many fields, people’s and other lively beings’ ability to sustain their life on the planet is directly dependent on the future of soil. Because, soil is our biggest resource, which cannot be renewed.

Loss of soil and efforts to prevent it in Turkey

In Turkey, where lands used for agriculture is about 27.9 million hectare, soil is one of the most crucial means of living. To the contrary of the general presumption, the figures indicate that Turkey is a poor country in terms of agricultural soil. That the agricultural lands become lesser available year by year due to residential, industrial and touristic constructions leads to rapid diminishing of agricultural soils and negative impact on sustainability of the soil. One of the factors, which affect sustainability of the soil in Turkey, is quick salinization of the soil due to erroneous soil practices, wrong irrigation and plant managements. Furthermore, the factors such as erosion and climate change threaten the soils of our country.

Within the scope of 2015 International Year of Soils practices, miscellaneous efforts are carried out in Turkey, which is one of the member states of FAO, with the supports of Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, universities, non-governmental organizations and private sector. Among the representatives of private sector which conduct efforts on soil, Toros Agri is outstanding with its practices and activities.

Toros Agri, which defends that right soil feeding is one of the most crucial tools in combating famine across the world, makes effort in order to ensure that soil is used more efficiently through initiatives such as Experimental Field Project, being the largest study conducted in this field in Turkey. On the other hand, Ms. Esin Mete, Chairwoman of Toros Agri, who assumed the duty of President of International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA) between the years 2013 and 2015, pioneered the awareness raising activities in food security, famine prevention, sustainable soil and agriculture in international platforms during her presidential term.

Ms. Esin Mete shared her assessments about the International Year of Soils during the IFA Annual Conference, realized in Istanbul between the dates of 25th – 27th May 2015, where she assigned her position as president. During her speech in the conference, Ms. Mete said: “Healthy soils are of great importance for food security and economic development and this is overlooked most of the time. IFA, therefore, has determined it as goal for themselves to rehabilitate unhealthy soils and protect healthy ones and manage them in a sustainable manner. Ms. Mete added to her statement that “Year of Soils” is not limited to 2015 for IFA, and the members of IFA will continue to highlight the importance of healthy soils in all corners of the world. Dr. Pedro Sanchez, Director of the Agriculture and Food Security Center at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who is one of the most important soil science specialists of the world, also participated in the meeting in Istanbul as a speaker.