An excellent interview of Allan Savory by Jonathan Teller-Elsberg deals with the difference between reductionist research and process-oriented management, and brittle and nonbrittle environments. Posted here.

The UK Soil Association has a wide-ranging and thorough report on the potential of agriculture to increase soil carbon. Highly recommended as a broad overview of the soil carbon opportunity

http://www.soilassociation.org/Whyorganic/Climatefriendlyfoodandfarming/...

An excellent and trenchant summary of the principles underlying Masanobu Fukuoka's practice, which also describes biosphere process:

"Soil is created by living plants working with microorganisms, and by the plants' residues and the microorganisms' corpses after their death. Soil is drained of nutrients by cultivation, NOT by plants."

http://fukuokafarmingol.info/foverfound.html

Sir Albert Howard, in his An Agricultural Testament (1943), wrote of the Wheel of Life, the balance between growth and decay. The chapter "The Nature of Soil Fertility" is reproduced here:

http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howardAT/AT2.html

RANGE magazine has a good article by Chris Gill and Allan Savory.

http://www.rangemagazine.com/features/fall-09/fa09-what_works.pdf

Tim LaSalle at Rodale posted a nice piece in Treehugger pointing out the lack of performance criteria or monitoring in the US climate bill, and the high importance of monitoring.

"The best way to tell if a farmer’s fields are sequestering carbon is to measure annual changes in soil carbon."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/waxman-markey-climate-bill-arent...

Cindy Dvergsten has a great piece on using sheep to maintain lawns.

On Feb 15 the Australian Landline program broadcast a documentary about Christine Jones and her efforts to promote awareness of the soil carbon opportunity.

Her message is simple: Rebuilding carbon-rich agricultural soils is the only real productive permanent solution to taking excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"She's frustrated that scientists and politicians don't see the same opportunities she sees. This year Australia will emit just over 600 million tonnes of carbon. We can sequester 685 million tonnes of carbon by increasing soil carbon by half a per cent on only two per cent of the farms. If we increased it on all of the farms, we could sequester the whole world's emissions of carbon."

Transcript here:

http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2008/s2490568.htm

Ohio State University soil scientist Rattan Lal writes, "We are dealing with 10 global issues at the moment: food security, availability of water, climate change, energy demand, waste disposal, extinction of biodiversity, soil degradation and desertification, poverty, political and ethnic instability, and rapid population increase. The solution to all of these lies in soil management. It doesn't mean that agriculture is the only solution, but it plays a major role in addressing these issues."

For the rest, including 10 recommended steps to better soil management, see

http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story...

“The land can be… an opportunity to solve most of the ongoing global crises,” Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), told a news conference in New York.

“If we want to tackle climate change challenges, we must look to the untapped potential of the soil to sequester carbon,” said Mr. Gnacadja, calling it a “win-win” situation. “By doing that, we are improving biodiversity of the soil ecosystem and improving the productivity of the soil, therefore impacting the livelihoods of affected populations.”

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=28756&Cr=desertification&Cr1

At the recent Slow Food conference in Turin, Italy, Vandana Shiva spoke about the need for carbon farming. Noted commentator Tom Philpott on Grist:

Where Gore dreams of a "low-carbon" or even "carbon-free" world, Shiva pines for a "carbon-rich" future -- one in which agriculture systematically builds organic matter into the soil, capturing it from the atmosphere.

http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2008/10/25/904/94558?show_comments=no