International lessons in black soil conservation to guide practices in China

Strengthening black soil protection is an important focal point for implementing strategies for “storing grain through land, technology, and ecological environmental protection”. It is also an inevitable requirement for promoting high-quality green agricultural development. Based on the logical framework of “problem raising-experience reference-local innovation,” this paper systematically reviews the international practices in black soil protection and their implications for China. In this study, we found that international practices have addressed constraints through seven key pathways: at the institutional level, focusing on improving legal policies, strengthening regulatory mechanisms, and enhancing land tenure stability; at the technological level, concentrating on promoting conservation tillage techniques and constructing soil monitoring systems; and at the actor level, stimulating farmers’ endogenous motivation through incentive compensation and awareness education. Based on these insights, China should build a coordinated “institution-technology-actor” protection system, improve the legal framework for black soil protection and synergize it with relevant laws and regulations, establish dynamic supervision and scientific evaluation mechanisms, enhance land tenure stability and advocate long-term leasing, promote conservation tillage techniques tailored to local conditions, establish and improve the soil quality monitoring network in black soil regions, strengthen ecological compensation mechanisms for black soil protection and utilization, improve the promotion mechanism for black soil protection, and foster a social atmosphere of protecting and cherishing soil.