The Stars in Our Soil: Soil Health Policies

A policy is a set of rules or guidelines that an organization or government creates to lay out how they will handle a specific situation. It is a plan of action for dealing with a particular issue, ensuring everyone involved knows what to do and how to make decisions consistently. 

Imagine walking in a field that was infested by black jack weed; before you know it, her small and black seeds will stick to your clothes. Their stiff bristles allow them to stick easily to clothes or animal fur – this is their seed dispersal mechanism. The seeds sticking to your clothes is how the black jack handles the situation of you walking around their space. That's the policy: you walk around their space, you become a seed dispersal agent.  

Soil health policies are the plan of action for those who are soil custodians at different levels. They handle specific situations on how healthy soil practices can consistently be upheld.

Soil health policies are stars for our soil, without whom our advancement towards global soil health would remain slower than the rate at which we are depleting our soils. The importance of soil health policies can be summarized into three pros: protect, probe and promote. 

Protect

Soil health policies can protect the soil from harm by encouraging sustainable land use practices that maintain soil quality, prevent erosion, improve water infiltration, mitigate climate change impacts, and ensure long-term food security by preserving the productivity of the land.

An example of policy action for protecting soil comes from May 2023, when the Netherlands Food Partnership (NFP) brought together a network session to explore the potential for the Soil Health Resolution (SHR) to protect soil in the context of their food systems initiatives. In the previous year, the draft resolution was officially launched during a high-level plenary at UNFCCC COP27  at the Food Systems Pavilion, which CA4SH co-hosted. The session by the NFP had three objectives, all aimed at ensuring soil is ultimately protected by the Soil Health Resolution, reiterating the importance of policies for soil protection and the dire need for partners to understand the need for soil to be protected. The session concluded that soil health must be regarded as a toolbox with tools for managing the climate crisis, food security and ecosystem restoration, among many others, thus, it should be broken down among key stakeholders. Collaboration among participants of the NFP was cited as a prerequisite for considerable progress on that front.

Probe

Soil health policies probe existing soil conditions and determine what amendments or adjustments are needed at a given time in order to keep the soil protected. This probing is what facilitates homegrown research and solutions for sustainable land use and management. By probing and monitoring soil health over time, stakeholders can make evidence-based decisions to improve soil health, and farmers are the best-placed citizen scientists as they are the custodians of the soil. Probing the soil will facilitate these comprehensive findings and adjustments. 

An example of linking the role of science in policy comes from this year when CA4SH, alongside its partners from Norad, Varda and CIFOR-ICRAF, convened for an insight sharing webinar based on a pilot initiative to advance soil health knowledge exchange. The initiative provided an opportunity for the partners to probe the current soil health data, information and knowledge sharing systems in effect in Kenya and Tanzania. After agreeing to the existing anomalies that have deterred the relevance of existing soil data, the partners agreed that a holistic approach to handling soil data must be generated for stakeholders to be able to use it to make informed decisions for soil health.

Promote

Soil health policies promote farmer education and all-around stakeholder engagement for accelerated soil restoration. Policies are legally bound to promote incentives and consequences for sustainable land use and management. By promoting best practices, policies directly impact food production, environmental sustainability, and climate change mitigation. CA4SH is using its strong membership and partnership-based initiative to build a case for soil health for people, nature, climate and food systems. We should all be championing soil health, which is made even better when we join hands through the coalition. We will raise a strong voice for the need for comprehensive soil health policies and rely on each other's capacity to facilitate their development and implementation.   

It goes without saying that soil health policies are a basic requirement in our efforts towards improving soil health globally. However, to date, the reinforcement of these policies leaves much to be desired, owing to the large numbers of hectares reported to have depleted soil annually. On the other hand, it is appreciated that Outcome 1 of the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health action plan includes improved policies for sustainable soil health and fertilizer management. This outcome will expedite the formulation of soil-centric policies that, if well implemented, will be a stepping stone towards greater achievements for soil health in Africa. 

In early 2025, CA4SH co-developed three briefs with AUDA-NEPAD and our partners exploring the application of soil information systems toward achieving the goals outlined in the Nairobi Declaration of the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit and the CAADP Kampala Agenda. The briefs are available in the CA4SH Knowledge Bank and serve as an important resource for driving soil health monitoring and data through policy frameworks to address Africa’s triple challenges of climate change, land degradation, and food security and biodiversity loss. 

As many nations move towards designing soil health policies, it is essential that they ensure commitment to sustained efforts that will be implemented on a long term basis, local soil conditions must be put into consideration and robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms need to be established in order to track policy effectiveness and make adjustments as and when they are needed.

The Coalition of Action for Soil Health advocates for evidence-based policy as an enabler for scaling global soil health by constantly collecting resources, updates and initiatives from around the world to share in the soil policy hub. Through its Policy and enabling environments working group, the coalition identifies strategic policy opportunities and entry points for soil health, takes the soil health resolution forward - ensuring that soil health is a core thematic priority within the climate agenda and carves a clear roadmap for action on soil health both within global and national level policy frameworks. The policy working group puts these objectives into effect through webinars, case studies, policy briefs and events. It is in this light that CA4SH and its partners hosted and participated in over one hundred events at the three Rio Conventions that happened in late 2024. Convening partners and members from diverse stakeholder groups to ensure soil health is a priority during negotiations. 

Soil Health Policies are stars in our soil, coupled with other stars we have discussed in past installments of this written series, they can accelerate soil restoration and lead us closer to achieving global soil health. 

Do you know any soil health policies?

Are they working for soil health or against?

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About the Author

Sussana Phiri is an alumnus of the Global Change Makers School, where she pursued Project Management for Change Makers (2020). She is also an alumnus of the Global Leadership Fellows Programme (GLFP ‘19), which focuses on imparting Strategic Management and Science Communication skills. Her most recent achievement is becoming the Young Professionals in Agriculture Development (YPARD) Zambia country representative.

Sussana carries a wealth of experience in fostering meaningful youth engagements in youth-led projects and women-focused interventions as a developer and project lead of the Future Fields and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato Projects respectively. She is a certified aquaculture and fish farming professional and holds a certificate in agriculture mechanics and machinery. She possesses a Bachelor’s Degree in Education and is currently studying for a Master of Education in Curriculum Studies from the University of Zambia. Most recently, she acquired a Diploma in Agroecology from the Kasisi Agricultural Training Centre.

Sussana has developed and implemented assignments with partners such as the Zambia Youth Environmental Network, Women Who Farm Africa, Zambia Agriculture Research Institute, Access Agriculture, CAADP Youth Network, Grand Challenges Canada, Chedic Associates, Ministry of Health- Mother and Child Health Department and the Chilanga District Agriculture Department.

Sussana is currently working with CA4SH as a Communications and Coordination intern through CIFOR-ICRAF, and is a member of the #Youth4Soil Initiative. The Stars in Our Soil is a 6-part series highlighting the scientific and social elements of the soil that are synonymous with the stars; each of them unique but when they are together, they light up the universe.