Soil is one of the most powerful carbon sequestering tools known to man, and protecting it will lead to greater food security with higher nutritional content, better water quality and of course can also play a huge part in reducing global warming. This week Dr Ratan Lal, winner of the 2020 world food prize, talks passionately about his life's work with soil and how we need to harness this incredible ecosystem for good.
Episode synopsis:
00:00 - Soil and its qualities
6:32 - Soil is alive
11:01 - Giving back to our soils
14:59 - Measuring soil health
16:20 - Soil degradation in impoverished areas
19:35 - What drew you to soil science
24:20 - Regulating soil erosion
25:01 - Soil and its role in carbon sequestration
36:17 - Biogeochemical cycling
41:35 - Advice
44:40 - Extro
Soil is one of the most powerful carbon sequestering tools known to man, and protecting it will lead to greater food security with higher nutritional content, better water quality and of course can also play a huge part in reducing global warming. This week Dr Ratan Lal, winner of the 2020 world food prize, talks passionately about his life's work with soil and how we need to harness this incredible ecosystem for good.
Episode synopsis:
00:00 - Soil and its qualities
6:32 - Soil is alive
11:01 - Giving back to our soils
14:59 - Measuring soil health
16:20 - Soil degradation in impoverished areas
19:35 - What drew you to soil science
24:20 - Regulating soil erosion
25:01 - Soil and its role in carbon sequestration
36:17 - Biogeochemical cycling
41:35 - Advice
44:40 - Extro
Harry Blakiston Houston 0:00
Welcome to the biotech podcast where we talk to the leading scientists in the world about their work their lives and fundamental questions concerning their field.
Today we'll be talking to Dr. Ratan Lau. Dr. Lau received his PhD from Ohio State University, after which he spent the first 18 years of his career as a soil scientist in Nigeria. He then returned to Ohio, where he became the distinguished university professor of soil science and director of the carbon management and sequestration centre. In 2020, Dr. Lau received the World Food Prize, which is given to individuals who have helped human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. This adds to an already extensive list of achievements, including being named one of the most influential scientific thinkers in the world, offering over 800 peer-reviewed papers and writing 19 books. during a lecture given in 2016. He said, Soil health is the foundation on which you rest, you take away that foundation, and everything else is empty.
Dr. Lau, welcome to the biotech podcast. Thank you for having me to start off with what is the soil and what are the aspects of a soil that affect its properties. Soil is the ascendance of our trust in your life. It is the jewel membrane into the upper surface of the Earth's crust, about 50 centimetres to one metre deep. That is, which is providing media for plant growth. It is also the home of 75% of all biodiversity. All ecosystem services of interest to human and relevant for Nature Conservancy come from soil in one way or the other, such as food security, water quality and renewability. Climate moderation and greenhouse gas regulation, the biodiversity, it is also the storehouse of germ plasm. It is also archive of human and Planetary history. However, soil resources are finite. They are easily degraded by land misuse and solid mismanagement, and they are difficult to restore. Once degraded, therefore, salt protection is very critical. So you've given us a very extensive list of the qualities of soil. What out of those qualities do you consider as being the most important or inspiring?
Dr Rattan Lal 2:57
Well, the most inspiring and important part of the soil, the soil health, and the health of soil, plants, Animal, people, environment, ecosystem, and the planet is one and indivisible. When the health of soil goes down, degraded, the health of everything else goes with it. So it is sad, simple as that many parts civilization, once thriving civilization vanished, because they took their solid resources for granted. We the humanity as a crossroads now, with 8 billion people, destined to be 10 billion in another 30 year by 2050. More than 11 billion by the end of the century. Soil is the foundation on which their well being depend. And therefore proper use of the soil is very fundamental to our civilization, as it was to those in the past. To give people an understanding of what a healthy or unhealthy soil looks like, Can you describe what each version looks like and maybe compare and contrast? The differences that one can observe a healthy soil, the one which is in equilibrium with its environment, it's as close to what it was under natural resources and talking about forests, Savanna prairie, those kind of ecosystem, it's soil. organic matter content is somewhere about three to 5% and it has a very intense biotic activity. Probably the live biomass of macro organism, micro meso organism, about five metric tonnes per hectare. That's a healthy soil. healthy soil has very good water retention. As it increases nutrient recycling, it supports plant growth and mechanism. It regulates climate change. It provides all the essential ecosystem services to look at a healthy soil should be fluffy, it should have a dark, rich brown colour because of the organic matter content and it's full of life altering termite centipedes, millipedes, and roots. And it supports plant growth, national use and what does land misuse mean? When you expose the soil too much by plying for example, excessive ploughing and soil becomes eroded by water or wind, where the topsoil layer is carried away or the soil is compacted or the soil is crusted, the soil gets hellenized perhaps because of the accumulation of salts on the surface. Soil has a very low biodiversity, the activity and species diversity of the soil is very low. That is when soil becomes degraded, when the soil health is not good enough to support ecosystem services. One other thing I might say, who causes it, of course, natural factors are there to cause soil degradation, but anthropogenic activity, many of them and human can create those.
Harry Blakiston Houston 6:32
So does that mean when we are considering soils, we need to think of it more as something with feedback mechanisms that is alive, like an animal rather than a mineral resource, for example.
Dr Rattan Lal 6:51
Certainly soil has many feedback mechanism. If we adopt restorative trend, those restorative trends do feed one another in a positive direction. And if we adopt all land misuse and solid mismanagement, then there's a negative feedback and that leads to downward spiral. So there are upward spiral as well as downward spiral, one of the part that I might indicate in terms of human men, human societies are mirror image of the soil that live on when humans are desperate, starving, miserable, they pass their sufferings to the land, and the land reciprocates. And this is visible, doesn't matter where you go, and you can see that link between human well being and soil health and vice versa. Therefore, the question is, how can human learn to live with soil in symbiosis with nature, so that all the activity we have are pro nature.
Harry Blakiston Houston 7:56
If we need to live in symbiosis with nature, and we need to stop ourselves from taking too much away from soils. Does it become a zero sum game whereby we always have to put back whatever we've taken out?
Dr Rattan Lal 8:12
That is very correct, there is a lot I do not know whether the word is zero sum that I will probably come back to it. But the law of return says whatever you take out of soil must be returned in one form or the other. That's exactly what it says. The second law which is very important is soil is like a bank account, you can take out of the bank account what you put into it. Similarly, you can take out of a soil, what you have put into it. And if you don't return you degrade it. When you begin to mind the soil like organic matter content, then it's a negative issue.
Harry Blakiston Houston 8:56
Can we get interest out of soil? Is it actually a linear relationship or is that not quite right?
Dr Rattan Lal 9:05
Oh, there is the interest. Because when this that is what I was saying zero sum No, because when soil health is improved his productive capacity by productive capacity, because soil will support plant growth, and plant growth through photosynthesis, taking co2 from the atmosphere and nutrient and water from the soil, from the media in which they are growing, they will increase productivity. So it is not a zero sum game. healthy soil does create interest, much interest, a lot of dividend.
Harry Blakiston Houston 9:38
So does that then mean that if we approach agriculture from the perspective of genomics, does that mean we are missing out on a large part of productivity because if you have the perfect breed of wheat you can't actually realise the plants match maximum capacity without good soil.
Dr Rattan Lal 10:07
Absolutely. And that is where something is important, you're going to plant varieties are absolutely critical, very important, there is nothing, you can do much without good varieties, but a good variety cannot do miracle that is called to do when it's grown on a soil, but the nutrients and water do not exist. So, the best option is to grow varieties under very healthy soil condition, that is the issue because the varieties are considered miracle we think they can do everything, even if the soil is not supportive, that is not the correct approach. If you want the potential to realise of the improved miracle variety, they have to be grown in a healthy soil soil has to be managed in a proper manner and soil health has to be maintained and improved.
Harry Blakiston Houston 11:02
It's really interesting that because it seems like a side of the coin, we often ignore, how then can we improve soil structure, how can we actually give back to our soils?
Dr Rattan Lal 11:16
Thank you are there are some principal components I already mentioned soil organic matter which should be out three to 5% in the surface layer which is essential to improving soil structure. The other part is or should be always covered. I have a detritus material crop residue or by a cover crop applying the ground and keeping it bare to exposing it to the weather climatic elements where it is eroded by water or snow melt are blown away by wind are desiccated by extreme heat that is not a very good way of protecting soil. Soil is a living entity, as I said it behaves it produces ecosystem services because of tremendous amount of living organisms in it. And those organisms require optimal conditions of growth including the food just as any other living organism to so soil must be protected. Soil must always be covered soil must be fed through organic based material. Yes, chemical can be put, as long as they are used judiciously, prudently and discriminately. indiscriminate dumping of chemicals at a high rate is poisonous, and it can injure soil life support processes. Yes, judicious use is acceptable, but not indiscriminate. So excessive flowing, excessive irrigation, excessive indiscriminate use of chemicals, excessive vehicular traffic, excessive flood based irrigation, these can all eventually lead to salt degradation. And it's documented throughout the world where it has been done in that way.
Harry Blakiston Houston 13:04
If it has been documented, and we know of these issues. Why then, is it so difficult for farmers and people working in agriculture, to appreciate the gains they could make by improving their soils?
Dr Rattan Lal 13:23
Right, very good question. And the problems are depends on what kind of farms we have. We have about 600 million to 700 million small landholders throughout the world, especially in Asia, Sub Saharan Africa, in the Caribbean, Central America etc. And these resource poor farmers cultivate maybe one hectare to Hector five hectare, their resources are very limited. And sometimes they have to take out of land everything take apart the grains take away the crop residue, they may feed the crop residue to the cattle and the cattle dung is not returned back because they have other uses for it. Sometimes the crop residue has to be burnt because they do not have proper machinery available to get rid of the residue and plough plant under residue cover they don't have proper seed rail, they do not have the techniques to apply drip fertigation therefore they resort to flood irrigation. So they are desperate because they are resource poor. On the other hand, though, there may be industrial farmers and that is not the case on all the time. For example, in Ohio, we have some outstanding exemplary farmers, but sometimes they do. Cut corner for quick economic returns. Shorter gains and short term economic gains at the expense of soil health can jeopardise the long term sustainability.
Harry Blakiston Houston 14:59
Is there a way that you can measure soil health online as people are doing it, so that people can see that payoff? Because it can be very difficult to make decisions on things you can't see like soil
Dr Rattan Lal 15:17
Certainly, One part I should say that soil degradation happens very quickly. You want blowing and kinda big rain after that and the topsoil is washed away very quickly, you can go in soil at our own moisture content, with the heavy machinery it can get compacted very badly. So, degradation can happen very quickly. The restoration of degraded soil is a slow process. But on the other hand, if you have a degraded soil and you adopt improved management system, so that you're creating a positive soil carbon budget, if the organic matter, then its positive impact would be visible first, in soil biotic activity like earthworms, soil become fluffy rather than compact and messy and hard. You can see that it's easy for plant roots to grow into it, plant growth and vigour will be visible. Yes, over time, you can see the transition to better soil health.
Harry Blakiston Houston 16:19
You said there were two ends of the spectrum, some industrial farming as well done some is not well done. And the other end of the spectrum, when people are poverty stricken, can they pass on that suffering to the land, how at that end of the spectrum, can one break the cycle?
Dr Rattan Lal 16:43
I think we can do both ways, better things. For example, as far as the small landholders are concerned, many people suggest subsidies, I would rather use a different concept called payment for ecosystem services. If farmer adopt regenerative agriculture, where they return the crop residue, leave it on the ground or use it as a compulsion returned to the soil do not burn do not allow us flood drip, irrigation grow a cover crop, integrate crops or trees and livestock. If farmers do that, and they create ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, water quality for people downstream water renewability they should be compensated for those services and I have suggested a cost of about $20 per acre per year, or perhaps about $45-50 per hectare per year. This will be a real incentive to farmer to adopt better agricultural practices, rather than take away everything from land. But this should be paid only if they do as suggested not.
Harry Blakiston Houston 18:00
So does that mean that people would get paid for the actions they're taking rather than for the outcome?As in if you implement it, you will get paid regardless or not. Because we know that there will be an uptake of carbon in the land.
Dr Rattan Lal 18:22
I think people begin to adopt improved practices imperata employing knotel rather than burning the crop residue limit on the surface, growing a cover crop in the offseason, you can see that by remote sensing techniques. And if that is happening, then after certification, we know farmers are doing what we suggested. So, the positive impact on soil will happen within one to three years and will progressively keep going. But we can visualise the activity by remote sensing, we do not have to actually go to see every acre of the land something like CRP, if you remember set aside land in the US when the land was set aside and vegetation was allowed to grow we knew erosion will be less than four we are compensating farmer on the basis of remote sensing, distant taking aerial photograph etc. So there is it is possible to pay farmers on that. But if they burn, if the crop residue is taken away, if deploying is happening, if there is no cover crop grown, if there is excessive grazing, they should never be compensated.
Harry Blakiston Houston 19:35
Soil ecosystem services are something my mother is actually funnily enough very keen on and has been for a long time. Taking a step back, what drew you into soil science as a young guy doing his PhD.
Dr Rattan Lal 19:54
I was interested in soil right from my childhood because my father had small farm, and I grew up on a small farm. So I was familiar with the challenges and issues that are faced by small landholders not returned. So soil fertility. In terms of soil compaction, drought, especially the drought, the place where I grew up, sometimes a lack of irrigation water, there are no canals available, water was not in the canal unit, they're not frequently enough. And so those issues, the issues of low soil fertility, because of the poor soil health, and then when I also notice if they applied some manure or if their cattle was made to sit overnight or someplace or the crop growth would be better. So I was very familiar with those things, I was familiar with puddling soil, and the problems are peddling and the transplanting arise. And I also was aware when the farm yields are low, what its consequences are not only for that specific fall for the global community. So I had an interest that yes, varieties are important. And some of my colleagues are plant breeders. And I could see that their work was very important, I still think it is, but the plant have to be grown in a healthy soil. Otherwise varieties can do their miracle. So I have been very fortunate, it has been a very rewarding professional experience.
Harry Blakiston Houston 21:31
How much of a field of soil science do you think is still invisible to the eye? I mean, there have been large increases in understanding over the course of your career. But how much do we still have left to understand?
Dr Rattan Lal 21:50
We certainly need to improve translating science into action through interaction with policymakers. Let me give you an example. In the US, we are now addressing the issue of algal bloom lakes and Ohio River many other Bill anoxia deadzone Gulf of Mexico and thing like this, and but the problem originates in the soil. Because if the soil is not holding the water, if the water is not passing through the soil, before it seeps into the stream, it's the runoff from the surface that it's carrying soil with rich in nutrients, sediment with phosphorus and nitrogen, that's the problem. So, same thing air quality, soil can be a source of many greenhouse gases, which cause it can also be a source of particles in sediments and dust which affecting human health or a smog or suit like you see in many Asian countries. So, we have in the US Clean Air Act, we have also EPA has a Clean Water Act, but there is no healthy soil act or soil quality act, how in the world it is ever possible to have clean water and clean air without having healthy soil. It currently have three elements of environmentally treating soil, water air, you must all those three, not just to not just one, all three of them. So this is about the time to have a Soil Health Act or soil quality act, and into it put in the payment to Farmer for ecosystem services. As a part of the Farm Bill, if us does that, I hope European country will adopt soil protection resolution and the United Nation may adopt soil charter. My concern is sustainable development goals of the United Nation. Agenda 2030 are not a crack, because soils are not specifically mentioned in any of the goals. Whether it is a zero hunger, whether it's a and a poverty, whether it's a human health and well being, whether it's a climate action, whether land degradation is a piece and just the word soil is not there. How can you ever achieve them?
Harry Blakiston Houston 24:20
Why can I ask Are they not there, because it seems man to me?
Dr Rattan Lal 24:27
That is very good. lack of awareness among those who draft those resolution, that oil is critical to that. This is exactly what it is. So people who are at a higher level in drafting these kind of very high impact policy issues, including those policymakers that all level must be aware of the significance and importance of soil. That is getting better. But we have a long where to go.
Harry Blakiston Houston 25:01
You mentioned that if we want to achieve the United Nations Development Goals that it's important to keep in perspective the balance between soil water and air, how is it that soil comes to play in carbon sequestration and what is the process of that used to store that carbon?
Dr Rattan Lal 25:28
Again this is something which is not very widely known among the trust real reservoir of carbon on the planet, soil is the largest reservoir soil has two types of carbon organic and inorganic. If you take the stock of carbon to one metre depth, the organic carbon to one metre depth of the ice Free Soil ice is about 1500 Giga tonne. If you also add into it the inorganic carbon that's about 750 Giga tonne total together to one metre depth is about 2300 Giga tonne, if you take this to two metre depth, it come to about 4000 Giga tonne, if you take three metre depth, it comes to about 6000 Giga tonne maybe more, because the permafrost soil have another 1500 or 1700 Giga tonne compare that was what is in all the trees and biomass 620 Giga tonne compared with here is 880 Giga. So 880 and 620 atmosphere and trees together is about 1500 soil to three metre depth is four times more than there's a direct link between soil carbon and atmospheric carbon. If we take soil carbon, one Giga tonne of it and put it into the atmosphere, it translates into about point five parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Same thing if we remove point 475 parts per million from the atmosphere put in the soil is about one Giga tonne. It's a direct link. So we have calculated that between now and 2100 if we did better agriculture, the system that I've been describing the technical potential of putting carbon in soil, total cumulative between non funded 180 Giga tonne also increased we can put carbon about 150 Giga tonne that are a forest to weather, the technical potential of drawdown of co2 per day both soil and tree restoration is more than 150 parts per million of co2 from the atmosphere. This is not enough by itself to mitigate global warming. Because every year we emit 11 and a half Giga tonne into the atmosphere 10 from fossil fuel, one and a half from diffa. So if we stop fossil fuel emission, if we stop new deforestation, if we protect forests, fire in the Amazon and many other places, especially in Southeast Asia, and then improve agricultural ecosystem and restore degraded land, the fate of climate change is in our hand, we can still keep it below two degrees centigrade to give people a bit of perspective on that number.
Harry Blakiston Houston 28:43
If you stopped emitting today, what proportion of the excess carbon in the atmosphere at the moment could soil consume?
Dr Rattan Lal 28:55
Let's say that we can permit to decrease and to get warming will be centigrade warming will correspond with a double of atmospheric co2 since the Industrial time, which were 280 parts per million doubling that is 560 parts per million. At the current level, the concentration is about 410. So 560 minus 410 is 150 parts per million. If you multiply that by two, we roughly have 300 Giga tonne of more ambition that we can do. No more. So the question, how do you divide the pie amongst people. And the other way to do that is that right now we have 410 parts per million, and we want to bring it down to 300 parts per million. That is very, very, very kind of unlikely. But let's say we bring down to 330 parts per million. That means we reduce 80 parts per million. That means taking out from the atmosphere, something like 160 Giga tonne of co2. So if we don't take out 160, and the soil definitely have a capacity to take out 160 vegetation also have a capacity to take out another 150.
Harry Blakiston Houston 30:28
On top of that, what you're saying is that by increasing the carbon content in the soil, not only are you helping the world in terms of climate, but you're also going to increase the productivity of the land you're farming on.
Dr Rattan Lal 30:46
Absolutely. All benefits of this, not only you achieve food security, you also to nutritional security, the quality of the food and the quality of the environment, you also improve water quality, and its renewability. You also increase biodiversity, there are so many co benefits. In fact, this is a win win win option. This is the bridge to the future. But this will work only if only if we stopped putting more co2 into the atmosphere.
Harry Blakiston Houston 31:17
One of the things that I love about the way you talk about soils, is that it comes across as a unifying factor, whether you're trying to address climate change, growing food, trying to help ecosystems, soil is always there. So it makes complete sense when you say it's crazy for it not to be included in any UN Development Goals.
Dr Rattan Lal 31:52
Yeah, I think and it does not mean that they are meant to do that. Those who are preparing it, what not just aware of it, and whose fault it is, in a way I would say fault is of people like me, we must make sure that we communicate with policymakers and those at higher places that they recognise that this is important. So and that means that we have to encourage my colleague and soil science and agronomy to be proactive, and be spending some time with policymakers and take initiative to work with them and draft a language which is very proper. Another part which I should mention, is very critical. While we are talking about looking at the soil, soil is a living thing. It's not that thing by the time Saul dies, it cannot produce anything that human needs a nature needs. So soil is a living thing. Like any other living thing, whether it's a human panda or butterfly or bald eagle or whatever a protected organism, soil also have a right to be protected, to be restored. To be managed judiciously, properly, is not a dumping ground for anything as wish it's not a property that has no rights and you can do with it what you want. and this thing that soil has a right has to become eventually agricultural land are very finite, very few left urbanisation and other surface healing is happening very rapidly, especially in developing countries or China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, elsewhere, we must map out prime agricultural land and protect it forever.
Harry Blakiston Houston 33:41
And then optimising the properties you're getting from the smaller land whilst allowing the rest of the land to become a carbon sink.
Dr Rattan Lal 33:50
Exactly. Exactly. Yes, and then restore degraded land and return some of that degraded land back to nature.
Harry Blakiston Houston 33:58
The rate at which carbon is returned to the soil tends to be a lot slower than it can be removed. Are there ways that we can increase the rate of carbon sequestration?
Dr Rattan Lal 34:16
Cartainly, yes, and the ways to increase the rate of carbon sequestration is return as much biomass to the soil as possible. Carbon organic carbon is coming from the biomass, crop residue root biomass, anything other material that we can compost and put it back on agroforestry a forestation of steep hills and denuded land, so it's returning biomar. under ideal condition in agriculture, the rate of increase on soil carbon is about somewhere between half a tonne to one tonne of carbon per hectare per year. If you combine this is biomass like a tree based agroforestry systems clearly the rate can go higher because tree biomass is more and that will also take more land area. So, if you integrate grazing with animal and put the animal dung also back on land, obviously you are recycling more. So, under better system which you do conservation, agriculture cover cropping, livestock agroforestry together, we can really increase the rate from one town to one and a half tonne per hectare per year for billions of hectares. And for also combining inorganic carbon that I mentioned, the rate can be between two and two and a half Giga tonnes of carbon per year on a global scale, but that is still only 20 to 15 25% of the fossil fuel combustion at the moment. So, this can work only if I keep on repeating this because I have been missing credit many times. We can keep burning and you can put in. No, you cannot keep burning, stop burning and then take out of the weapon in the soil.
Harry Blakiston Houston 36:17
So, let things basically degrade into the soil slowly.
Dr Rattan Lal 36:23
Right, exactly.
Harry Blakiston Houston 36:24
Can other chemicals be useful in increasing the rate of return to the soil? Are for example fertilisers used to help feed the soils or are they just used to feed the plants?
Dr Rattan Lal 36:42
Yes. Houmous is composed of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and other micronutrients. In fact, if they saw the building block of the humerus in soil, which is organic matter, is the crop residue let's say wheat or corn or rice. Let's take the example of corn and wheat. The residue carbon to nitrogen ratio in wheat is about 100 to 100 carbon one nitrogen in the humerus, which is stable organic matter the dark substance which has an improved soil structure and scorestreaks carbon, the carbon to nitrogen ratio may be 10, 12, 15 less than 20. So, you must is going to require more nitrogen, more phosphorus, more sulphur more other elements to eventually you're enriching them. So they have to come from somewhere and some married parties recycling, biological nitrogen fixation from cover crop by legumes, and even some grasses fixed nitrogen, but recycling and sometime you have to put some soil amendments also which contain all these nutrients. So, please understand that nothing is free everything has to come from somewhere and whatever we have especially phosphorus, phosphorus is a limited nutrients, we must recycle and protected very properly against soil erosion against inappropriate loss from ecosystem and at the same time water. So what I'm in a way suggesting is what we call biogeochemical cycling and I teach that in a class biogeochemical cycle the cycle of carbon nitrogen, water phosphorus, sulphur, they are interlinked and that is coupled linking coupled cycling of water with carbon with nitrogen the management goal is to strengthen that coupling.
Harry Blakiston Houston 38:52
Okay, what do you mean by that?
Dr Rattan Lal 38:56
Well, decoupling can be caused by excessive blowing for example, decoupling can be caused by erosion or erosion is a result of decoupling, decoupling can be called when you add inappropriately excessive nitrogen and not provides equal amount of phosphorus and sulphur which may be the many thing can lead to decoupling. So, if it's the case that you always need to keep this things coupled, does that mean that the equation that would have the nitrogen phosphorus potassium NPK water and whatever else might be needed?
Harry Blakiston Houston 39:40
Does that equation change dependent on what the soil is in the same way that you feed different different species different food?
Dr Rattan Lal 39:52
Right, exactly know that that balance amongst carbon nitrogen phosphorus, sulphur is essential. To improve soil health, and unfortunately, when you go to the developing countries poor farmers and we talked about that, in Africa and elsewhere, they have been mining not only carbon from the soil by ploughing and releasing nutrients, but also nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur. Can you imagine the negative nutrient budget because of mining in Africa, Sub Saharan Africa is 30 to 40 kilogramme and nutrients on a continent of scale per year. similar problem exists in Central America and the Caribbean and similar problems exist in South Asia. So, some air we have to think about not mining the any things maintain the budget of all these elements very properly, and then at the same time and soil health is improved, then you got a positive interest like Remember, we talked about it, then you got interest coming in, because NPP is improved biological nutrient recycling, biological nitrogen fixation is happening. And this transition period may take time matrika generation and during that generation transition, we want to make sure farmers are supported and encouraged and motivated and incentive wide. And that is where the payment for ecosystem services come in. That's where the policy and awareness of what needs to be done is so important. To wrap up with one final question
Transcribed by https://otter.ai