1. Dr. Rafiq Islam

Current high-input conventional farming produces greater amounts of food, feed, and fiber, but effects of these farming practices, together with climate change, are adversely affecting soil health with increased agroecosystem disservices. Agricultural productivity needs to double to support global food security by 2050, which will make existing farmlands increasingly dependent on reactive agrochemicals, freshwater, and energy inputs. Such intensification of farming will have consequences on agroecosystems that are expected to be detrimental. The importance of soil health and increased agroecosystem services, highlighting challenges and opportunities being faced with sustainable practices and technologies that are associated with soil carbon farming for climate change solutions. Such an adoption of agriculture with environmentally compatible soil and water management practices (no-till, crop rotation, multifunctional cover crops, precision chemigation, soil amendments, and chemical inducing) is expected to maintain, rejuvenate, and/or improve soil health, increase drought and salt tolerance of crops, support higher nutrient and water-use efficiency, economic crop productivity, and enhance agroecosystem services. We envision that climate-smart agriculture will address the challenges and opportunities to emphasize the connection among carbon farming approaches, soil health, and climate change solutions.