Giving Compass' Take:

• Kiley Price interviews Bronson Griscom about the necessity of harnessing soil carbon's potential to reduce the impact of climate change.

• How might findings like soil carbon inspire funders to keep on giving? What can you do to support future discoveries of planet-saving caliber?

• Learn more about soil carbon and its impact on climate change.

In 2019, a United Nations report laid out a bitter truth: The current food system is fueling the destruction of Earth’s forests — and humanity must overhaul how we grow and ship food to stop climate breakdown.

But countries are struggling to keep farming sustainable while meeting the mounting demand for production — which must increase by between 25 percent and 70 percent by 2050 to feed growing populations.

A groundbreaking new study reports that the secret to making this possible lies in the soil — or more specifically, in the carbon stored in the soil.

Conservation News spoke with Conservation International scientist Bronson Griscom, a co-author on the study, about the vast potential of soil to help halt climate change and why protecting soil carbon is a "win-win for farmers and the planet."

Bronson Griscom: Trees and plants suck up carbon from the air and use it to store energy and build their stems, leaves and roots. It’s prehistoric magic: Plants eat our carbon pollution and turn it in to all sorts of useful things, including food, wood and soil carbon. Plants add carbon to the soil both by leaking it in gradually while they live, or all at once when they die. As a result, soils hold three times more carbon globally than the atmosphere. This is not only good for our climate, but also good for the health and productivity of our soils.

According to our analysis, protecting or restoring carbon in soil can provide 3 billion tons of cost-effective climate mitigation per year.

2020 must be the beginning of a decade of climate action and this research shows the cost-effective — and mutually beneficial — steps that we can take right away.

Read the full article about soil carbon and its climate-saving potential by Kiley Price at GreenBiz.