I am sincerely grateful and take immense pride in being a part of the CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration as a Fulbright Postdoc Research Scholar. The center has provided exceptional facilitation, affording me the invaluable opportunity to collaborate with a dynamic and impressive research team under the guidance of Dr. Lal.
My tenure at Lal’s center opened new and advance insights of knowledge and ideas for me in fields related to carbon sequestration and greenhouse gasses emission from arable land and their possible mitigation strategies. Undoubtedly, carbon emission and capture are no longer in balance, and the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere is steeply rising thus reaching net-zero C emission is a big undertaking. While agriculture is recognized as a 3rd major anthropogenic source of greenhouse gas emissions (21%), I firmly believe that "Agriculture is not a problem contributing to climate change; rather, it is the solution to mitigate climate change." However, realizing this potential requires development, exploration, and implementation of ecologically resilient, sustainable, economical and climate smart agricultural strategies.
Therefore, my research focuses on transformation of organic wastes into carbon and nutrient enriched compost and biochar. Their application into soil not only sequester soil carbon but also play vital role in restoring soil health, enhancing water and nutrient use efficiency, remediating heavy metal-polluted soils, and mitigating greenhouse gas (N2O) emissions from cultivable land I am confident that this visit/experience will play a vital role for the devolvement and implementation of climate resilient agricultural practices in Pakistan and may/will turn a source of research and professional collaboration between University of Swabi and The Ohio State University. Thank you for hosting me.