Realistic value, major challenges, and effective path of soil health cultivation from a food security perspective

Adopting soil health-preserving cultivation practices to strengthen the quantitative, qualitative and ecological protection of farmland is an inevitable strategy for strengthening the foundation of national food security. From the food security perspective, soil health-preserving cultivation aims to comprehensively improve soil productivity and multiple functional values, with the main cultivation characteristics of systematization, greening and precision. It leverages the roles of stakeholders, including the government, new agricultural management entities and small farmers, and promotes the effective coordination of farmland ecology with agricultural, economic and social benefits through the promotion and implementation of a series of soil health-promoting cultivation measures. Accelerating healthy soil cultivation offers practical value for implementing national strategies, promoting green agricultural development and ensuring food safety. The promotion of soil health-preserving cultivation practices currently faces significant challenges. These include the lack of a sound soil environment monitoring system, insufficient understanding of soil multifunctionality by agricultural producers, dual suppressive pressures of agricultural product cost and price acting against soil health-preserving cultivation practices, urgent need for a sound and relevant policy system and dueling contradictory interests in variety structure and subject structure. Additionally, there is an urgent need to establish a key to consolidate foundational cultivation practices and improve the national cultivation system and mechanisms, further promoting the establishment and preservation of green farmland, improving promotion and service systems delivering soil health-preserving cultivation technologies, promoting the participation of multiple factions in soil health cultivation, improving soil health-preserving cultivation guarantee mechanisms and accelerating the exploration of effective paths to improve soil health-preserving cultivation.