Development of on-farm and computational tools for assessing soil health in Brazilian croplands

Abstract

Soil plays a crucial function in providing essential environmental benefits and services for human well-being and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. However, approximately 40% of global soils are currently degraded, posing significant challenges to crop production and food security. Soil health encompasses the continuous capacity of soil as a living ecosystem to maintain environmental quality, support crop productivity, and ensure human health. Evaluating and enhancing soil health is essential for ensuring agricultural systems more productive and resilient. To conduct comprehensive soil health assessments in Brazil, it is imperative to develop on-farm and advanced computational approaches. On-farm methods can be included as a promising tool for assessing soil health directly in the field as long as it is associated with appropriate computational techniques to encompass its complexity. These methods should be simple and affordable, enabling producers and technicians to conduct their on-site assessments backed up by computational approaches for translating the measurements into valuable information. This allows stakeholders to obtain insights to pursue more sustainable land management practices. In combination with on-farm methods, computational approaches further enhance the scalability of the soil health assessments. However, to ensure precise assessments, it is crucial to improve interpretation curves and develop region-specific algorithms that account for diverse conditions in terms of soil types, climate, topography, parent material, land use, and management practices. This is especially significant for Brazil, as it is a major player in global food production and ranks fourth worldwide in publishing soil health studies. In this project, our goal is to develop tools (on-farm and computational approaches) to assess soil health in Brazilian agricultural areas. To achieve this, we have organized the project into five work packages: 1. Develop an on-farm Soil Health Kit for assessing soil health in the field by farmers and managers. 2. Utilize a large dataset of Brazilian agricultural lands to generate the "Status of Soil Health" using the Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF). 3 Develop algorithms for soil health indicators (such as pH, P, K, C, and Bd) specific to Brazil (SOHMA Tool). and 4. compare the SOHMA Tool with algorithms used in the SMAF Tool. Finally, 5. Integrate the SOHMA Tool into an interactive web-based platform. The project results will advance the understanding and assessment of soil health in Brazilian agricultural areas. By developing and validating new tools and interpretation methods, we expect to promote more sustainable land management practices across the country, as well as have soil health metrics to monitor their effectiveness over time.