SOILutions for Security: CGIAR at the 2025 Borlaug Dialogue

From October 21–23, CGIAR will join global partners in Des Moines, Iowa for the 2025 Borlaug Dialogue, hosted by the World Food Prize Foundation. This year’s theme, “SOILutions for Security,” highlights soil as a living system that underpins food and nutrition security. It underscores the foundational role that healthy soil and agriculture play in sustaining global stability. The focus on soil is timely: more than 40% of the world’s cultivated land is degraded, affecting over 3 billion people, and 95% of our food depends directly on soils. Treating soil merely as dirt overlooks its rich biodiversity and pivotal importance. By viewing soil as a living infrastructure, we can better grasp why investing in soil health is essential for resilient harvests, nutritious diets, and climate change mitigation and adaptation worldwide.

CGIAR’s Science-Based SOILutions for Resilience

As the world’s largest agricultural science network, CGIAR contributes a broad portfolio of “soilutions” – innovations that improve soil health, sustainable land management, agricultural productivity, and climate resilience. Drawing on decades of research and networks of partnership across continents, CGIAR centers and research programs deliver evidence-based strategies that help farmers and policymakers restore and sustain our soils. Key examples include:

• Agroecology & Regenerative Practices: CGIAR’s work on agroecology and regenerative agriculture demonstrates how nature-based farming can rejuvenate soils. By restoring soil organic matter, enhancing biodiversity, and reducing chemical inputs, these approaches  offer tremendous potential to strengthen rural livelihoods and improve access to diverse, nutritious food.
• Digital Soil Mapping & Precision Nutrient Management: In regions like Africa where up to 80% of cultivated land is degraded and nutrient depletion costs billions in lost harvests, CGIAR scientists are rolling out high-resolution digital soil maps to guide smarter farming. These maps use soil surveys and geospatial data to enable site-specific nutrient management. Farmers can apply the right fertilizer in the right amount, at the right time and place – following the “4R” principles of soil fertility. This precision approach is expected to improve productivity, reduce pollution, and support climate-smart practices.
• Biofertilizers & Soil Biodiversity: CGIAR researchers are also pioneering biosolutions – biologically based soil amendments like beneficial microbes and natural fertilizers that can replace or augment synthetic inputs. These microbial inoculants and biofertilizers restore soil fertility while reducing dependence on chemical fertilizers. Scientific trials show that such bioinputs can enhance plants’ nutrient uptake, improve soil structure, and even curb greenhouse gas emissions by cutting excess nitrogen runoff.
• Land Restoration & Sustainable Landscapes: Reversing land degradation and rebuilding healthy landscapes is another pillar of CGIAR’s work. From East Africa’s highlands to the dry Sahel, CGIAR research has shown that degraded soils can be revived through integrated soil fertility management, agroforestry, and landscape restoration. At a larger scale, CGIAR’s Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program is coordinating efforts to restore ecosystems and farmlands by linking science with community action. These efforts align with global goals like Land Degradation Neutrality, illustrating how evidence-based practices – from planting nitrogen-fixing trees to improving ground cover – can regenerate the land. Healthier soils not only raise long-term farm productivity but also increase carbon sequestration and biodiversity, creating more resilient and vibrant landscapes.

CGIAR at the 2025 Borlaug Dialogue

The CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes (MFL) Science Program, which is coordinating CGIAR’s presence at the Dialogue, works to advance integrated solutions across food, land, and water systems. Through a systems lens, MFL supports science and partnerships that connect soil restoration with biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, and rural livelihoods. Its work demonstrates how healthy, multifunctional landscapes can anchor both ecological and human security, an idea that aligns closely with this year’s focus on soil as a foundation for resilience.

CGIAR experts will also be speaking in multiple sessions during the Dialogue, offering insights on topics such as conflict-sensitive agriculture, sustainable land management, and innovations in soil health. For the full agenda and list of CGIAR speakers, visit our event page.

The Borlaug Dialogue offers an important moment to advance collaboration and share progress. CGIAR’s work demonstrates that soil restoration is not only technically feasible, but also essential. By integrating soil health into climate action, food systems transformation, and peacebuilding strategies, we can achieve co-benefits that reach far beyond the farm.

In a world facing mounting ecological and social stress, healthy soils are foundational. At the 2025 Borlaug Dialogue, CGIAR is proud to contribute science that helps cultivate both resilience and security starting from the ground up.

(For details on CGIAR’s sessions and speakers at the Borlaug Dialogue, please visit our events page.)

Author : Regina Edward-Uwadiale