World Soil Day (WSD), on 5 December, is the United Nations Observance that celebrates healthy soils for a food-secure future. Soil constitutes one of the core components of a productive agricultural sector, able to provide enough and nutritious food, and is a key provider of other ecosystem services, essential for the achievement of many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
.
The main objectives of World Soil Day 2020 were to:
(1) Recognize that the sustainability of soils is key to meet the pressures of a growing population.
(2) Advocate for the promotion of sustainable soil management to contribute to healthy soils and thus to a food secure world.
(3) Recognize the economic and social significance of sustainable soil management.
(4) Stress that desertification, land and soil degradation and drought are global challenges and that they continue to pose serious constraints to the sustainable development of all countries.
Every year, more than 100 countries around the world hold events to mark World Soil Day, making it one of the most celebrated days on the UN calendar, reaching hundreds of millions.
The annual campaign calls on all Member States and their governments, United Nations agencies and other international and regional organizations, as well as civil society, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, individuals and any other relevant stakeholders (farmers, schools, colleges, academia) to observe the celebrations of the Day.
CAMPAIGN
This year’s campaign “Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity” [hashtags: #SoilBiodiversity; #WorldSoilDay] urges us to focus our attention on the workforce belowground – from tiny bacteria to agile millipedes and slimy earthworms – all of which contribute to processes essential to life on Earth.
EVENTS
Collective actions in more than 105 countries and hundreds of millions of participants make World Soil Day one of the most celebrated UN Observances. For its latest edition ‘Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity’, more than 780 events brought together governments, businesses, NGOs, youth, the media, and the public. From Rome to New York, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, Moscow, many countries held official ceremonies and 21 FAO regional, sub-regional and country offices took an active part in the campaign.
Media coverage was strong – reaching 891 million users – roughly 2 out of 10 people worldwide. More than 500 online articles were detected globally between 3 and 7 December, most of them from Asia, North America, and Europe. In terms of broadcasting, WSD was well covered by the BBC, NDTV.com, and al-Jazeera.
FAO’s press release presenting the launch of the “State of knowledge of soil biodiversity” attracted media interest, and major media outlets such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Xinhuanet, National Geographic, Science, and Le Monde gave prominence to soil biodiversity on 5 December.
The recipients of the Glinka World Soil Prize – Mr Luca Montanarella, European Commission – and the King Bhumibol WSD Award – Indian Council of Agricultural Research – India – were widely reported in the press.
Ad-hoc communication materials and products were made available on the WSD website in more than 16 languages and downloaded 10 000 times (+25% compared to 2019). New content presented the secrets of soil biodiversity on which humans rely. The web stories (1) ‘Soils should have rights too’, (2) ‘It’s alive! Soil is much more than you think’ as well asthe webcast of the virtual event and the Director-General’s speech gained significant track, digitally.
As every year, soil fans, education ministries, teachers, donors, soil science societies, and families joined efforts to make the WSD logo available in 100 languages, including local dialects. Furthermore, the joint work of soil scientists and designers led to the success of FAO’s Global Soil Partnership and the International Union of Soil Sciences’ ‘Book contest for children on soil biodiversity’, with 97 entries from 75 countries.
Conversations
On social media, #WorldSoilDay content reached over 308 million accounts with 200 multilingual posts on 5 December. The top social media post was published on Twitter, with more than 800 retweets, 1.4k likes and 41 200 views. On the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo, the topic related to WSD reached 8.3 million accounts. The campaign video, released on WSD, was viewed more than 500 000+ times. The promotional videos produced for TikTok were viewed 42 000 times on 5 December. More than 5 490 accounts worldwide shared FAO content. During the campaign, FAO’s soil-related websites generated around 4 million page views. Over 200 000 new users visited WSD related content on fao.org between 4-7 December. Web traffic increased 4 times more than the usual average compared to previous weeks. The highest cumulative traffic came from Asia with 55% of users, followed by the Americas with 25%, and Europe with 16%. India, the United States, and Mexico recorded the highest peaks.
PUBLICATIONS
The International Code of Conduct for the Sustainable Use and Management of Fertilizers aims to guarantee an effective and efficient use of fertilizers and address issues of global importance including:
- Global food production and food security;
- The preservation of fundamental ecosystem services
- The maximization of economic and environmental benefits;
- The reduction of negative impact of excess nutrients in ground and surface waters;
- The minimization of negative effects and potential toxicity of contaminants in fertilizers;
- The improvement of food safety, diets, nutritional quality and human health.
The Soil Organic Carbon Mapping cookbook provides a step-by-step guidance for developing 1 km grids for soil carbon stocks. It includes the preparation of local soil data, the compilation and pre-processing of ancillary spatial data sets, upscaling methodologies, and uncertainty assessments. Guidance is mainly specific to soil carbon data, but also contains many generic sections on soil grid development, as it is relevant for other soil properties.This second edition of the cookbook provides generic methodologies and technical steps to produce SOC maps and has been updated with knowledge andpractical experiences gained during the implementation process of GSOCmap V1.0 throughout 2017.
World Soil Day 