URBANA, Illinois, US, Dec 4 2024 (IPS) - Recently, at the UN climate conference COP29, countries agreed to do everything necessary to invest in climate solutions to protect lives and livelihoods from worsening climate change impacts and to build a prosperous world. This is necessary. Indeed, every effort must be made by our leaders to protect lives and livelihoods.

One of the best investments possible is in agricultural climate solutions. In particular, investments in solutions that seek to protect soils and agricultural crops that we depend upon to meet food security.

Otherwise, these soils and crops are vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the form of droughts, flooding, pest outbreaks, and elevated temperatures.

Although it is a daunting task, protecting livelihoods and agricultural crops from the detrimental impacts of climate change is achievable.

Adopting regenerative practices has been documented to bring multiple benefits including building soil health and quality, improving biodiversity, all while helping to mitigate the effects of climate change

Preventing crop failures and cascading impacts including food insecurity, hunger, and famines can be achieved by rolling out and adopting multiple climate solution strategies ranging from the use of microbial solutions and beneficial soil microbes and the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices and integrated pest management strategies.

Microbial solutions, including soil microbial inoculants, leverage beneficial soil microbes and natural soil microbiome capabilities to create fertile and resilient environments for agricultural plants, including processes like suppression of soil pathogens, fixing soil nitrogen and making other important plant nutrients such as phosphorus available.

Accumulating evidence has revealed that beneficial soil microbes can deliver many benefits including improving the growth and yields of agricultural crops like maize, tomatoes and wheat that are important for meeting food security needs.

Additionally, these microbes have been shown to shield agricultural crop plants from drought and enhance crops’ ability to tolerate elevated temperatures, salinity, insects and many other stressors associated with climate change. Beneficial soil microbes are critical in mitigating the effects of climate-change associated stressors.

Regenerative agricultural practices are a set of rejuvenating farming and agricultural sustainable practices that seek to boost soil health, water resources, soil organic carbon sequestration and soils biological diversity.

These sustainable practices include cover cropping, crop rotation, planting diverse crops, minimizing soil disturbance, using less fertilizers, agricultural inputs and chemical pesticides and incorporating livestock.

Adopting regenerative practices has been documented to bring multiple benefits including building soil health and quality, improving biodiversity, all while helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. For example, research has revealed that cover crops can improve soil health and increase the abundance of beneficial insect communities.

Integrated pest management is an approach that doesn’t rule out the use of pesticides, but uses them as little as possible and only for strong reasons.

It promotes the use of safer alternatives, like biocontrol, which uses natural enemies to control pests, and cultural control practices which modify the growing environment to reduce unwanted pests.

Integrated pest management approaches include the use of resistant plant varieties that have been bred to resist insect damage, and crop rotation which changes the crops planted every season or year, to break the life-cycle of insect pests and discourage pests from staying on the farm.

Ultimately, strategies being released to help deal with the climate crisis must fundamentally pay attention to improving soil and its health. Soil is the basis of healthy and nutritious food, income and economy.

Initiatives rolled out to build soil health must be rooted in science and adhere to the several science-based soil health building principles and practices including mulching, conservation agriculture, reduced tillage and cover cropping.

Smart investments in the soil must be based on a scientific assessment of the state of the soil, making soil testing initiatives a good place to start. Knowing what soils need allows for precise interventions and is a win for climate resillience and environmental protection.

Building soil health will build back life-giving soil nutrients, diverse soil microbial communities and soil organic matter. Soil organic matter is associated with other benefits, such as improvements to plant health and yields; increased soil water retention, which increases the ability of crops to tolerate drought; and expansion of biological diversity within the soil.

Diverse biological organisms in soils turn play critical roles in soil ecosystems, including decomposition, breaking down pollutants, and cycling essential plant nutrients., life-giving nutrients, and diverse soil microbial communities, and in turn boost climate resillience.

Importantly, as we roll out these initiatives, we must remember that the ability of communities and citizens of different countries to adapt and employ these strategies will vary enormously, depending on financial capabilities.

Financial investments to support rolling out of these agricultural climate solutions and practices can be channeled through governments departments and ministry of agriculture.

Protecting lives, livelihoods, and agricultural crops from the catastrophic impacts of climate change is an urgent task that will require the rolling out of multiple initiatives-from regenerative farming practices to using microbial inoculants and adopting integrated pest management strategies. We must continue to encourage countries to invest in these initiatives. It is a win- win.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign