{"id":284389,"date":"2016-12-13T22:46:51","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T21:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/soil-keeping-nutrients-in-food-and-carbon-in-the-ground\/"},"modified":"2016-12-13T22:46:51","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T21:46:51","slug":"soil-keeping-nutrients-in-food-and-carbon-in-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/soil-keeping-nutrients-in-food-and-carbon-in-the-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Soil: Keeping Nutrients in Food and Carbon in the Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><span class=\"wf_caption\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 629px; width: 100%;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.truth-out.org\/images\/Images_2016_12\/2016_1213ips_1.jpg\" alt=\"Soil stores nutrients, carbon and micro-organisms. (Credit: Xavi Fern\u00e1ndez de Castro \/ IPS)\" width=\"629\" style=\"width: 100%; margin: auto;\"\/><span style=\"text-align: left; margin-top: 3px; display: block;\">Soil stores nutrients, carbon and micro-organisms. (Credit: Xavi Fern\u00e1ndez de Castro \/ IPS)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Healthy soil not only makes food more nutritious it also helps keep carbon out of the atmosphere by storing it underground.<\/p>\n<p>Yet around the world over 500 million hectares of\u00a0soil has become degraded \u2013 leading to the loss of\u00a0valuable nutrients as well as the release of\u00a0carbon, speeding up the process of\u00a0man-made climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Climate change then in turn, affects crop productivity creating a negative cycle for farmers, Lucrezia Caon Global Soil Partnership Consultant at\u00a0FAO told IPS.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we degrade soil they admit carbon dioxide (CO2), that fosters climate change, and climate change effects crop productivity,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>IPS spoke to Caon at an event ahead of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/en\/events\/soilday\/\" target=\"_blank\">World Soil Day<\/a>, which is marked on December 5.<\/p>\n<p>The event focused on the special role of pulses in preserving soils.<\/p>\n<p>2016 is International Year of Pulses, following on from 2015, which was the International Year of Soil.<\/p>\n<p>Pulses include peas, beans, chickpeas and lentils. They are particularly popular in South Asia and Latin America.<\/p>\n<p>Pulses are generally more popular in developing countries than developed countries, Caon noted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Seventy five percent of pulses are consumed in developing countries and only 25 percent in developed countries,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"wf_caption\" style=\"display: block; max-width: 640px; width: 100%;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.truth-out.org\/images\/Images_2016_12\/2016_1213ips_2.jpg\" alt=\"Pulses are good for nutrition and income, particularly for women farmers who look after household food security, like those shown here at a village outside Lusaka, Zambia. (Credit: Busani Bafana \/ IPS)\" width=\"640\" style=\"width: 100%; margin: auto;\"\/><span style=\"text-align: left; margin-top: 3px; display: block;\">Pulses are good for nutrition and income, particularly for women farmers who look after household food security, like those shown here at a village outside Lusaka, Zambia. (Credit: Busani Bafana \/ IPS)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>According to the FAO, pulse crops are one of the most sustainable crops a farmer can grow.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pulses are a very good ally in combatting and adapting to climate change because of the soil organic matter content they provide to the soil,&#8221; said Caon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pulses have deep root systems which basically once you harvest the plants, or the root dies, keep the carbon in the soil,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>Plants also keep carbon in the soil in other ways, said Caon. Leaves which fall from the plants are taken&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.truth-out.org\/news\/item\/38714-soil-keeping-nutrients-in-food-and-carbon-in-the-ground\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Soil stores nutrients, carbon and micro-organisms. (Credit: Xavi Fern\u00e1ndez de Castro \/ IPS) Healthy soil not only makes food more nutritious it also helps keep carbon out of the atmosphere by storing it underground. Yet around the world over 500 million hectares of\u00a0soil has become degraded \u2013 leading to the loss of\u00a0valuable nutrients as well [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":284390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-284389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}