Agroforestry for Restoring and Improving Soil Health

Globally, sustainable agricultural systems must be better understood as evidenced by concerns about food security, environmental degradation, and climate change. The demand for food and goods is increasing with rise in population while the productivity of land is declining all over the world. It is predicted that 25% of the world’s lands are either highly deteriorated or prone to rapid degradation. Approximately, 12 million hectares of land are degraded every year worldwide due to land degradation. The functioning of soil ecosystems depends mainly on soil biodiversity and soil organic matter content. Inappropriate land use practices, such as deforestation, crop residue clearance, overgrazing, extensive mechanical tillage, and irrigation, are the main factors that contribute to soil nutrient losses and land degradation. Lack of organic matter reduces soil fertility, which ultimately results in reduced agricultural production. There are 175 million acres of degraded land in India. The world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050, which will necessitate a 60% increase in food production. Many conventional methods have been recommended for preserving soil fertility among which agroforestry is a potential system with multiple benefits. The woody perennial in agroforestry can supply nutritional inputs to crops through biological nitrogen fixation, deep capture, and storage of nutrients in their biomass. Tree roots take up different macro and micronutrients from deeper soil strata, which are then released into the top most layer of soil during the decomposition of roots and litter and have a potential utilization in providing nutrients to agricultural crops. As a land management strategy, agroforestry can simultaneously support household income, food security, soil biodiversity preservation, gender equality, and ecosystem services as well as address global issues such as climate change, global warming, and fulfilling the obligations of international agreements such as sustainable development goals (SDGs).