Farmers and gardeners have long sung the praises of soil. For the rest of us, it?s practically invisible. But a greater awareness of soil?s ability to sequester carbon and act as a defence against is earning new attention and admiration for a resource most of us treat like dirt.

Soil can potentially store between 1.5 and 5.5 billion tons of carbon a year globally. That?s equivalent to between 5 and 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide. While significant, that?s still just a fraction of the 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted every year from burning fossil fuels.

Soil is just one of many solutions needed to confront climate change. But the nice thing about healthy soils, is that creating them not only helps fight climate change it also brings multiple benefits for agricultural, human and environmental health. ?With soil, there?s so much going on that is so close to us, that?s so interesting and multifaceted, that affects our lives in so many ways—and it?s just lying there beneath our feet. Underground, an invisible ecosystem of bugs, or microorganisms, awaits. In fact, there are more microbes in one teaspoon of soil than there are humans on Earth. Many of them lie dormant, just waiting to be properly fed and watered.

 A well-fed army of microbes can go to work strengthening the soil so it can grow more food, hold more water, break down pollutants, prevent erosion and, yes, sequester carbon.

How soil sequesters carbon?

Soil sequesters carbon pass through a complex process that starts with photosynthesis. A plant draws carbon out of the atmosphere and returns to the soil what isn?t harvested in the form of residue and root secretions. This feeds microbes in the soil. The microbes transform the carbon into the building blocks of soil organic matter and help stabilize it, sequestering the carbon.

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