ABSTRACT
There is no more important factor relating to long-term soil productivity than soil organic matter content, and no greater potential source for the sequestration for global carbon than the soil. By taking steps to increase soil carbon, it is possible not only to reduce the effects of global atmospheric pollution by carbon dioxide, but also to improve the prospects for a long-term solution to the world food problem. Measures to increase sequestration of carbon by soils create a genuine win-win situation, in which solutions to an environmental problem and a production problem can be solved by the same measures. There are several questions which scientists have to resolve relating to how the true extent of the potential of soils to sequester carbon may best be established and how practical methods to implement measures to sequester more carbon in the soil can best be promoted.
