A new Coordinated Research Project has been launched to develop Climate-Smart Agricultural practices to manage and restore salt-affected soils in agricultural land.
The IAEA, through the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, and Anglo American Crop Nutrients, will closely collaborate to find sustainable solutions to alleviate soil salinization, improve marginal land fertility and increase crop productivity using nuclear and related techniques.
Salinity affects 1.4 billion hectares of land globally, posing a major threat to food security. It is increasingly becoming one of the important global challenges for food production, with estimates predicting that 50% of all arable land will become impacted by salinization by 2050 (FAO, 2024). With a rapidly rising population and increasing impacts of climate change, preventing the loss of arable land to salinization is critical.
The Coordinated Research Project (CRP) will investigate how mineral fertilisers, such as polyhalite, can reduce salt stresses in crops under Climate-Smart Agricultural practices, providing practical solutions to farmers.
“We are interacting with a complex natural ecosystem that we may not fully understand. Every input we apply and practice we initiate must be considered in the context of the crop, soil and environmental impacts we are having. It is only by applying this framework that we will drive the changes required in agriculture to meet productivity, biodiversity and emissions goals,” said Kathryn Bartlett, project leader at Anglo American Crop Nutrients.
