A Compendium of Carbon Enhancing Technologies, Approaches and Practices for African Soils

This compendium is about sustainable practices of soil carbon sequestration in agriculture. Soil carbon is a depleting resource globally, and particularly in Africa. Increasing carbon storage in soils is a solution to improving soil fertility and improving agricultural productivity as well as to decreasing CO2 and mitigating climate change – the important challenges encountered by countries nowadays. Agriculture is a prominent topic in the national priorities related to climate change, both in adaptation and mitigation, as expressed by countries in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In March 2017, the analysis found that, most NDCs committed to emission reduction in agriculture and listed agriculture as a priority for adaptation. These priorities included a number of agricultural sub-sectors such as livestock, manure and grassland; croplands, fertilizer management and agricultural residues. Examples of cropland mitigation and adaptation strategies included carbon sequestration, agroforestry, and conservation agriculture. While several sustainable practices and technologies have been used to enhance soil carbon, the learning resources are not easily available at a single place. There was a demand from the African National Designated Entities (NDEs) for learning resources on soil carbon enhancing technologies, practices and approaches compiled at a single source. This compendium is a collection of pertinent practices intended at enhancing soil carbon and having potential for application in several African countries. The compendium briefly distills out most pertinent points for a general understanding and then points to the relevant literature for detailed reading of an interested reader. Although the contents of the compendium might be of interest to a much broader readership, the intended readers of this compendium are soil and agricultural practitioners, especially those working in Africa. Other users can be staff of extension agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs).

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