Carbon sequestration for sustainable agriculture

Abstract

The climate of earth has been experiencing an unprecedented change possibly due to the rapidly increasing amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere. If the release of GHGs into atmosphere continued at current rate, global warming will make the earth's atmosphere uninhabitable for living beings in near future. There is an urgency to discreetly devise multiple strategies to offset the current release of GHGs into atmosphere. The CO2 has a prominent share in global warming amongst all GHGs in atmosphere. Soil carbon sequestration is a promising approach to offset the raising amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Both partially degraded and agricultural soils have a considerable potential to minimize the elevated CO2 levels in the atmosphere. On a global scale, the soils can retain twofold more C than that present in the atmosphere or captured in vegetation. The temperature, soil moisture and elevated CO2 levels are the dominant climatic factors affecting the soil C sequestration. Soil C sequestration is also strongly influenced by various edaphic factors i.e. soil texture, soil structure, soil porosity, soil compaction, soil mineralogy, and soil microbial community composition etc. Additionally, agricultural practices like land-use changes, plant residue management, agro-chemicals etc. influence soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, either directly e.g. by altering the amount of C being added in the soil, or indirectly e.g. influencing soil aggregation and thereby accelerating microbial decomposition processes. Besides offsetting the rapidly increasing atmospheric GHGs, soil C sequestration may potentially improve the soil quality and advances the food security. It may play a crucial role in sustainable agriculture (SA) because it is highly sustainable and environment-friendly approach. It can enhance the soil quality by improving soil health parameters followed by improved crop production on sustainable basis.