Soil Management for Smallholders: Lessons from Kenya and Nepal

Healthy soil provides food, stores nutrients for plant life, and delivers essential ecosystem services such as water purification and carbon sequestration. Studies suggest soil may be the greatest reservoir of biodiversity (Wall, Bardgett, and Kelly, 2010) and the most valuable single natural commodity, worth nearly US$4 trillion in 2012 alone (Amundson et al., 2015). Soil is also a key factor in building resilience to and combating climate change (Lal, 2004). The UN Food and Agriculture Organization declared 2015 the International Year of Soils precisely to call attention to the important role soil plays in our lives.