Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices—Strategies to Conserve and Increase Soil Carbon in Hungary

This review summarizes the role of soil in climate change mitigation and highlights the potential of agricultural practices to support this effort. It provides an overview of methods that enhance soil carbon sequestration and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from soils. After presenting a brief global overview, we focus on how the organic carbon stocks of Hungarian agricultural areas have changed over the past decades, underscoring the importance of climate-smart agricultural practices. We examine how these practices—such as cover crops, conservation tillage, fertilization, crop rotation, regenerative agriculture, and agroforestry—affect soil carbon stocks. While the review draws on global research, its primary focus is on practices applicable in Hungary. The effectiveness and feasibility of these climate-smart agricultural practices depend significantly on local climate, geographical location, and soil conditions. Therefore, we thoroughly analyze the applicability and limitations of each practice within the Hungarian context. In addition, we explore temporal trends to assess how the adoption of certain climate-smart practices has evolved over the past one to two decades. Lastly, we discuss the challenges of implementing the presented practices from economic, policy, regulatory, and human perspectives.