World Soil Day 2026 is on Saturday

About World Soil Day

Soil is easy to overlook because it is everywhere, yet it underpins farming, forests, clean water and wildlife. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 95 percent of our food comes from soils and that about a third of the world's soils are degraded, through erosion, salinization, pollution, compaction or the loss of organic matter. Because new soil can take centuries to form, damage done in a few years can last for generations. World Soil Day promotes practices that protect it, from cover crops and reduced tillage to composting and careful use of fertilizers.

The International Union of Soil Sciences first recommended an international day for soil in 2002. Thailand then championed the idea within FAO's Global Soil Partnership. The FAO Conference endorsed it unanimously in June 2013, and in December 2013 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/68/232, designating December 5, 2014 as the first official World Soil Day. FAO, through the Global Soil Partnership, was given the mandate to coordinate it.

The date honors King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, who supported the effort and whose official birthday was December 5; he died in October 2016. FAO presents a King Bhumibol World Soil Day Award in his name. Each year has a theme: 2024's was "Caring for Soils: Measure, Monitor, Manage," and 2025's was "Healthy Soils for Healthy Cities." FAO reports that more than 10,000 events have been registered on its World Soil Day map in a single year.

Sources: FAO: World Soil Day, FAO: About World Soil Day, FAO: About World Soil Day (2025 version, archived). How we check dates.

How to mark World Soil Day

• Start a compost bin or pile for kitchen scraps and yard waste, then use the finished compost on a garden bed.
• Do a simple soil check in your yard: dig a small hole and look at its color, smell and how many earthworms you find.
• Cover bare garden soil with mulch or a cover crop over winter to protect it from erosion.
• Test your garden soil before adding fertilizer, using a kit or a local extension service, so you add only what it needs.
• Read a food label or farm website to learn how a farm you buy from protects its soil.
• Run a classroom activity growing seeds in different soils to show how soil affects plants.

World Soil Day dates