Soil Based Approaches for Reducing Carbon Footprint in Agriculture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18059770Keywords:
Carbon footprint, Carbon sequestration, Climate smart agriculture, Greenhouse gas emissions, Soil managementAbstract
Agriculture is a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions with soils being a critical component to regulate the carbon footprint of agricultural systems. Soil based approaches provide effective pathways to mitigate the emissions by increasing soil carbon sequestration and decreasing greenhouse gas fluxes. This review integrates existing knowledge on soil processes that affect emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the environment and discusses important soil management practices that contribute to carbon footprint reduction in agriculture. The issues of conservation tillage, residue management, organic amendments, diversified cropping systems, and better management of nutrients and water are discussed as mitigation options of major importance. The review also prescribes soil carbon sequestration as a key mitigation pathway and examines carbon footprint assessment tools and methodologies as they relate to agricultural soils. In addition, the potential that soil based approaches can play in carbon credit generation and their role in climate smart agriculture is explored. By combining both soil science and climate mitigation goals, this review highlights the importance of soil management in the development of sustainable and low carbon agricultural systems.
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