ABSTRACT
Extensive agricultural production along climate change has been posing serious threats to sustainable crop and soil management, and global food security. There is an urgent need to explore alternative soil and crop management practices to increase crop productivity while sustaining soil quality. Enhancing soil organic matter is pre-requisite for improving soil fertility and crop productivity. Soil organic carbon (C) is the most profound element of soil quality that provides multiple benefits to soil-plant systems. Organic amendments are extensively used to enhance soil organic matter, soil fertility and crop production; however, the effects of these organic amendments vary strongly with soils, crops, regional climate and other farm management practices. Improvements in crop productivity, soil fertility and quality generally show positive relationships with soil organic C stocks. Many soil and crop management practices have shown strong potential to increase soil organic C such as tillage practices, crop rotations and use of various organic amendments. Soils with higher C stocks tend to be more resilient towards the deleterious effects of climate change. Therefore, soil organic C is the fundamental component of climate smart agriculture which enables sustainability of agroecosystems while mitigating and adapting to climate change.
