The British Society of Soil Science’s (BSSS) virtual Annual Conference will take place on Tuesday 7 September 2021 and will consider soil health from five different perspectives, providing insight into a prominent topic across professional and academic practice.
Soil Health: From Principles to Practice will welcome presentations from Jim Harris on A New Look at Soil Health, Elizabeth Stockdale, Head of Farming Systems and Agronomy Research at NIAB, looking at soil health scorecards for farmers, Matthias Rillig on how multiple factors of global change affect soil processes and biodiversity and Felicity Crotty discussing using soil biology to assess soil health. Each speaker will present their perspective of soil health and then engage in a panel discussion with questions from our delegates.
BSSS is delighted to also welcome Dr Rattan Lal who will give the President’s Lecture titled Returning Land to Nature by Producing Just Enough from Less. A renowned soil scientist, Dr. Lal was awarded the 2019 Japan Prize for ‘the sustainable soil management for global food security and mitigation of climate change’ and was named the recipient of the prestigious World Food Prize in 2020. In his presentation, Dr Lal will explain how degradation of one-third of agricultural soils has increased yield gap and that 30-50% of food produced is wasted, 700 million people are under-nourished and 2 billion are malnourished. He will discuss how food production and consumption systems must be designed to protect, restore, manage, and return some land to nature and that the strategy is to restore soil health, improve soil organic matter, reduce food waste, adopt prudent consumption systems, produce just enough of nutrition-sensitive food, and return some land to nature.
Professor Sacha Mooney, BSSS Past President and Conference Chair said, “Soil Health is a very prominent topic of conversation at the moment with many different views, perspectives and ideas on what determines healthy soil and how this can be achieved and assessed in practice. I hope that our programme highlights the importance of soil health, suggests some important next steps and raises an awareness of what we can all do to make a difference.”
The conference will take place from 9:00am – 12:15pm, is free of charge to BSSS members and registration is available via: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1739408019461939980.
The virtual event will be followed by the Society’s Annual General Meeting at 12:15pm.
Download the programme and speaker biographies for our Annual Conference.