Will we allow soil carbon to feed our needs?

Humans need many things, but unacknowledged by many of us are the intricately critical influences that soil with high organic carbon has on our life support system. Soil is as vital to human survival as air, water and the sun; its protection and enrichment with organic carbon are needed for the future sustainability of our planet. Curiously, the growing possibility of trading carbon in a global marketplace may actually help us to better appreciate the enormous value of soil carbon on how our world functions and how we have the influence to preserve and enhance critical ecosystem functions or continue to degrade them with reckless abandonment. With the expected rise in human population and the need for even more food to be produced on already stressed landscapes, widespread adoption of conservation agricultural systems is necessary to build a more resilient global food production system that can also help to mitigate climate change and improve our relationship with nature.