Putting Soil Security on the Policy Agenda: Need for a Familiar Framework

David Oscar Yawson, Michael Osei Adu, Benjamin Ason, Frederick Ato Armah and Genesis Tambang Yengoh
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David Oscar Yawson: Department of Soil Science, School of Agriculture, College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
Michael Osei Adu: Department of Crop Science, School of Agriculture, College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
Benjamin Ason: Soil Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Accra, Ghana
Frederick Ato Armah: Department of Environmental Science, School of Biological Science, College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
Genesis Tambang Yengoh: Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University, Lund 22100, Sweden

Challenges, 2016, vol. 7, issue 2, 1-11

Abstract: Soils generate agricultural, environmental, and socio-economic benefits that are vital to human life. The enormity of threats to global soil stocks raises the imperative for securing this vital resource. To contribute to the security framing and advancement of the soil security concept and discourse, this paper provides a working definition and proposes dimensions that can underpin the conceptualization of soil security. In this paper, soil security refers to safeguarding and improving the quality, quantity and functionality of soil stocks from critical and pervasive threats in order to guarantee the availability, access, and utilization of soils to sustainably generate productive goods and ecosystem services. The dimensions proposed are availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability, which are obviously similar to the dimensions of food security. Availability refers to the quality and spatial distribution of soils of a given category. Accessibility relates to the conditions or mechanisms by which actors negotiate and gain entitlements to occupy and use a given soil. Utilization deals with the use or purpose to which a given soil is put and the capacity to manage and generate optimal private and public benefits from the soil. Finally, stability refers to the governance mechanisms that safeguard and improve the first three dimensions. These dimensions, their interactions, and how they can be operationalized in a strategy to secure soils are presented and discussed.

Keywords: soil security; dimensions; availability; accessibility; utilization; stability; critical and pervasive threats; ecosystem services; policy agenda (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A00 C00 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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