The Department of Agriculture – Bureau of Soils and Water Management (DA-BSWM) supports the annual celebration of the World Soil Day (WSD) with this year’s theme “Be the Solution to Soil Pollution”.

Recommended by the International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) in 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has supported the formal establishment of WSD as a global awareness campaign.

WSD recognizes the importance of soil as a critical component of the natural system and as a vital contributor to the humanities’ food, water, and energy security, and as a mitigator of biodiversity loss and climate change.

This year, FAO campaigns under the #StopSoilPollution banner to raise awareness and encourage people to take action over the threatening reality of soil pollution. FAO recognizes soil pollution as a hidden danger that lurks beneath our feet.

About one-thirds of our global soils are already degraded and the risk of soil pollution is still unknown as not certain data are available on a global scale. This may lead soil degradation, poisons the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe.

The World Soil Day is an international celebration observed every 5th of December, the birthday H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand, who officially formalized the establishment of the event. ###