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E-book Global Status of Black Soils
Black soils are unique soils characterized by a thick, dark-coloured soil horizon, and rich organic matter content. Due to their high inherent fertility, black soils are known as the food basket of the world or the “giant panda in arable land” in Asia. For decades, these fertile soils have been widely cultivated, and have played a key role in global agricultural production of cereals, tuber crops, oilseed, pastures, and forage systems. Despite representing only 5.6 percent of the global land area, these black earth belts feed not only the 223 million people settled on them, but also the countries that import various black soils’ commodities, thus contributing to global economy. It is estimated that in 2010, 66 percent of sunflower seeds, 51 percent of small millet, 42 percent of sugar beet, 30 percent of wheat and 26 percent of potatoes, were harvested globally from black soils (FAO, 2022). Globally, approximately one-third of black soils are covered by crops, one-third by grasslands, and the remaining third by forests. However, this distribution varies within each region (FAO, 2022). Most black soils have evolved to support a grassland vegetation characterized by an enormous floristic and faunistic richness, including soil biodiversity, which provides soil health and key ecosystem services such as water retention, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, climate regulation, among others. The V.V. Alekhin Central-Chernozem State Biosphere Reserve, located in the Russian Federation’s Kursk region, is a good example of preserved ecosystems with 7 200 species of organisms, relict vegetation and rare plant species: pristine ecosystems that can serve as reference sites to monitor soil health (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, 2022).
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