This document discusses soil carbon sequestration as a strategy for addressing food security, climate resilience, and low-emission agriculture. It notes that soil carbon levels have declined significantly in many agricultural soils. Improving land management practices, such as no-till farming and use of cover crops, offers large potential to sequester carbon in soil. Soil carbon sequestration can provide benefits like increased crop yields as well as incentives for adoption. The document proposes developing an open-source geospatial database to monitor soil carbon levels under different land uses and management practices worldwide.

1. Soil Carbon Sequestration:
The Triple Win Strategy for Food
Security, Climate Resilience and Low
Emission Agriculture
Ademola Braimoh, PhD

2. Introduction
• The link between agriculture and human well-being
will grow stronger in the 21st Century because of
the enormous promise that agriculture offers for
growth, poverty reduction and supply of ecosystem
services
• Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor live in rural
areas and depend on agriculture for their
livelihood.
• By 2050, agricultural production will need to
increase by 70% to feed the world’s 9 billion
people

3. • Accelerating climate change is an additional challenge
to meeting the food security needs of the increasing
population.
• Global surface temperature has risen by 0.8oC since the
late 19th Century.
• Average rate of increase is 0.15oC per decade since
1975 (IPCC, 2007).
• Projected increase during the 21st Century is 1.5 –
5.8oC (IPCC, 2001).

4. • Intensification of hydrologic scarcity and variability.
• Crops have to grow in hotter and drier conditions.
• Higher temperatures and shorter growing seasons will
reduce the yields of most crops
• Changes in precipitation pattern will increase the
likelihood of short-run crop failures and long-run
productivity declines (IFPRI, 2009).
• Overall impact is expected to threaten food security.
Impacts of Climate Change on Food Production

5. • Effects of land-use change on soil carbon is a major concern in
international policy agenda
• Agriculture and forestry sector account for about one-third of global
emissions.
• Most agricultural soils have lost 30 – 40 t ha-1 (30% - 75%) of their
antecedent soil organic C pool (Lal et al. 2007)
• Degree of loss is higher in soils that are susceptible to accelerated
erosion.
• If a given land-use change (deforestation) leads to soil carbon
losses, then the reverse change (reforestation) could potentially
increase carbon stock
Land use as a source of emissions

6. • However, it can take several years to recover the original level
of soil carbon stock after such a significant disturbance to the
land system.
SoilC
Time
Steady state A
Steady state D
Steady state C
Steady state B
Steady state E
Disturbance
New management
Influence of management on SOC

7. • Improved land management practices has large mitigation
potentials
• 5.5 – 6.0 Gt CO2 equivalent by 2030; 89% through carbon
sequestration.
Land use as a sink of emissions
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000
Up to $20
Up to $50
Up to $100
Biophysical potential
Mt CO2 - equivalent
A2; a more divided world, a world of
independently operating, self-reliant nations
B2; a world more divided, but more
ecologically friendly
A1b; a more integrated world with a
balanced emphasis on all energy sources
B1; a world more integrated, and more
ecologically friendly

8. Mitigation potential across world regions (Mt CO2-eq)
70% of the potential resides in developing countries

9. Soil Carbon Sequestration Potential
Values in parentheses
are in kg C ha-1 yr -1 (Lal 2004)

10. Soil Carbon Sequestration potentials in Sub Saharan Africa
Land management practice Attainable rates Mg ha-1yr-1
Natural or improved fallows 0.1 – 5.3
Manure, crop residues and no till on
croplands
0 – 0.36
Permanent cropland with no till 200 -1500
Permanent croplands with fallow 400 – 18500
Fallow systems Up to 28500
Vagen et al (2005)

11. Soil Carbon Sequestration and Crop Yields
Expected change in cereal yields by increasing soil organic C
in the root zone by 1% in different countries (based on Lal,
2010)
Change in yield (Mg ha-1) Crop Country
2.24 Wheat Argentina
1.76 Maize Northeast China
1.01 Rice India
2.87 Maize Nigeria
0.33 Wheat Russia

12. Soil carbon sequestration provides ancillary benefits
including
• Reduced soil erosion
• Improved soil structure
• Increased nutrient holding capacity
• Increased nutrient use efficiency (spend less on
fertilizers)
• Reduction in land requirement for farming -
agricultural intensification - less emissions

13. Constraints to adoption of soil carbon
sequestration practices
• Land tenure/property rights
• Displacement of emissions
• Permanence
• Monitoring costs
• Absence of incentives -(e.g. non recognition by
CDM, lack of insurance/risk management, PES)

14. Moving the Soil Carbon Agenda Forward
Improved knowledge of
• Carbon sequestration potential of sustainable land
management practices across agroecological
zones
• The trade-offs and synergies between carbon
sequestration and food security that is associated
with changes in land management practices.
• The role of socioeconomic and institutional factors
in the adoption of sequestration practices
• The appropriate incentives for soil carbon
sequestration in different regions of the world.

15. Soil Carbon Assessment at the World Bank
We intend to develop an open source, geospatial database for
soil carbon monitoring for specific land uses
Examples of scenario questions answered by the database:
• What is the carbon sequestration rate of soils in
locations X, Y and Z?
• Given the soil and climate conditions of location A, what
cultivation and management practices are required to
achieve a carbon sequestration of x tons and when will
this be achieved?
• What is the effect on carbon storage if management
practice changes from P to Q and in what year will
carbon sequestration reach saturation?

16. 16
You can contribute ideas, data and other
information to the database development by
sending e-mail to abraimoh@worldbank.org