Integrating local knowledge into soil science to improve soil fertility

Environmental changes are threatening current and future food security. In this context, it is imperative to design agricultural systems that are resilient to increasing frequent climate shocks, losses in biodiversity and soil fertility and to increasing demand from our societies because of population growth and consumption patterns. The emergence of sustainability science reminds us that soil management cannot be successfully approached by the independent actions of individual categories of actors, namely soil researchers or agronomists. Therefore, we advocate for more holistic and transdisciplinary research that takes into account the social, cultural, environmental and economic impacts of agricultural practices. Using examples of agricultural practices that aim to use the activity of termites to improve the services delivered by ecosystems (e.g. the Zai system), rather than considering them pests and trying to eradicate them from lands, we discuss the interest of traditional agricultural practices as sources of inspiration for soil scientists and for the identification of tomorrow's agricultural practices.