Consortium of Management Practices in Long-Run Improves Soil Fertility and Carbon Sequestration in Drylands of Semi-Arid Tropics

A continuously declining carbon in soils of drylands has increasingly become a source of concern and needs integrated solutions to achieve global food security and sustainability goals. This study analysed the impact and sustainability of management practices for climate change mitigation and food security in dryland tropics using long-term field trials. We compared a consortium of interventions, comprised four treatments, viz. traditional farming, improved practice, and regenerative treatments. Additionally, we presented the results of regeneration practices aimed at maintaining the soil macro and micro-aggregates. Results showed significantly higher soil organic carbon (SOC) in the topsoil layer (0–15 cm) of regeneration areas compared to the precision farming area. Our long-term experiments with a consortium of interventions resulted in a promising increase in soil carbon and crop yields. We selected shared socioeconomic pathways for scenarios in future climates and simulated the effect of improved practices in the near and distant future. Our simulation results revealed that adopting improved practices enhanced soil carbon at the rate of 0.7% per year and provided additional income from the yield of pulses in the 2-year rotation. Similarly, we observed an increasing trend in SOC building for improved practices in all future climate scenarios. However, the traditional practice showed a clear decline (0.20–0.15%) in SOC stock for all shared-socio-economic pathways.