Abstract Soil degradation is one of the greatest threats to global civilization with claims that there may be as few as 60 years of harvests left globally. As such, the concept of soil health has gained increasing interest in recent years. However, despite years of research there is no universally agreed metric or metrics on which policy aimed at protecting or enhancing soil health can be based. Here, we argue that the challenges associated with measuring and monitoring soil health from a policy perspective are an issue of current approach rather than concept of soil health per se. Research into soil health has identified practices that are recognised, by consensus, and based on published scientific evidence, to improve or support soil health. These include crop rotations, reduced or no tillage, organic amendment with composts and manures, and use of cover crops. Implementation of a different approach to soil policy and farm subsidies based on a “Payment for Practice” policy paradigm would circumvent the intractable issues associated with identifying and implementing performance-based policy predicated on soil health monitoring at the field scale. Payments based on practice could be dependent on the combinations of practices implemented. Efforts spent on identifying the best practices for a given farming system/environment rather than attempting to find a soil health indicator that will do all things for all people would concurrently provide evidence to policy makers on which to form policy while providing robust guidelines for farmers and land managers. This will facilitate improvement and maintenance of soil health through specified practices based on empirical evidence.

中文翻译：

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一种新的土壤健康政策范式：为实践而不是绩效付费！

摘要 土壤退化是全球文明面临的最大威胁之一，据称全球可能只剩下 60 年的收成。因此，近年来土壤健康的概念越来越受到关注。然而，尽管进行了多年的研究，但还没有普遍认可的衡量标准或衡量标准，旨在保护或增强土壤健康的政策可以以此为基础。在这里，我们认为从政策角度衡量和监测土壤健康相关的挑战是当前方法的问题，而不是土壤健康本身的概念。对土壤健康的研究已经确定了公认的、基于已发表的科学证据的公认做法，以改善或支持土壤健康。这些包括轮作、减少耕作或免耕、使用堆肥和肥料进行有机改良、和使用覆盖作物。基于“为实践付费”政策范式的土壤政策和农场补贴的不同方法的实施将规避与识别和实施以田间土壤健康监测为基础的基于绩效的政策相关的棘手问题。基于实践的支付可能取决于实施的实践组合。努力确定给定耕作系统/环境的最佳实践，而不是试图找到一个可以为所有人做所有事情的土壤健康指标，这将同时为决策者提供证据以制定政策，同时为农民和农民提供强有力的指导方针。土地管理者。这将通过基于经验证据的特定做法促进土壤健康的改善和维护。