Healthy soil: the great worker of Brazilian agriculture.

On December 5th, we celebrate World Soil Day, a date that invites us to look more closely at the natural resource that sustains life on the planet. For those who work in agriculture, like us at Embrapa Cerrados, which will celebrate 50 years of research in 2025, this is also an opportunity to reaffirm a commitment: to help keep our soils alive, biologically active, productive, and resilient.

The soil is the great worker of Brazilian farms. It sustains the plants, stores water, sequesters carbon, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, cycles nutrients, and harbors the greatest biodiversity on the planet. Just as any company seeks to keep its employees healthy so they can perform their duties well, agriculture needs to ensure that the soil is in balance. Diseased soil may produce in the present, but it compromises the future.

Healthy soil means greater productivity, more available water, fewer pests, greater carbon sequestration, fewer greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and better quality food. Scientific studies have already shown, for example, that soybeans produced in healthy soils have a higher protein and flavonoid content. This is important for industry, for export, and especially for human nutrition.

Inspiration in nature

But healthy soil doesn't happen by chance. It's the result of intelligent management, inspired by nature: with plant diversity, permanent cover (preferably living plants covering the soil year-round), minimal tillage, and integration between agriculture, livestock, and forestry. Among the most effective strategies, I highlight the use of brachiaria grass as a cover crop. Its deep roots transform the soil structure and strengthen its biological life. It is truly the best "vaccine" for recovering diseased soils.

For a long time, when analyzing soils, we only looked at the chemistry: nutrients lacking or in excess. But soil is not just sand, silt, and clay. Soil is life; it functions like a superorganism. And to care for this life, we need to measure it. It was with this purpose that, after two decades of research, Embrapa launched an innovative technology in 2020: Soil Bioanalysis (BioAS), a true "blood test" for the soil capable of diagnosing soil health based on its biological activity.

This test, currently available in over 30 commercial laboratories across the country that form the Embrapa BioAS Network, uses the determination of two key enzymes from the carbon and sulfur cycles to indicate whether the soil is healthy, deteriorating, diseased, or recovering. In partnership with these commercial laboratories, we are building the world's largest database on soil health, covering all 27 Brazilian states and the most diverse agricultural systems, including crops and pastures.

Today, thousands of samples reveal an important message: most of our soils are healthy or in the process of recovery. This data reflects the effort and commitment of Brazilian farmers to conserve the main asset of their property. And the most transformative thing is what we are doing with this data. Each result issued by the laboratories will be gradually integrated into the Soil Health BR Platform: resilient soils for sustainable agricultural systems, officially launched at COP 30.

The platform provides soil health data by state and municipality and already gathers information from approximately 56 samples from 1.502 municipalities across all regions of the country. The tool was built using geospatial data from BioAS. The system allows filtering by state, municipality, year, crops, and soil textures, as well as comparisons between different agricultural crops. It also generates maps and graphs based on bioanalysis functions such as nutrient cycling, storage, and supply.

Caring for the soil means caring for the water, the climate, biodiversity, and people. If the soil is healthy, the entire system thrives. This is the timeless mantra of agronomy, so well disseminated by Dr. Ana Primavesi: healthy soils, healthy plants, healthy people and animals, a healthy planet. Everything is connected. Therefore, on World Soil Day, I reiterate my invitation: let us continue to recognize the value of this heritage and adopt practices that ensure a productive agricultural environment today and in the future.

The soil is alive. And, as Dr. Rattan Lal, winner of the World Food Prize (2020), states, being the essence of all life, soils have the right to be protected, restored, to thrive, and to be managed consciously. This is the path to keeping Brazil at the forefront of sustainable agriculture. And this is what has driven us at Embrapa Cerrados for five decades: to produce knowledge so that the land continues to produce life.

By Ieda Mendes, Embrapa Cerrados