Abstract:In the past 60 years, the highly-intensive and unreasonable farming of the black soil in Northeast China has brought a series of adverse consequences such as the reduction of organic matter, the serious imbalance of carbon and nitrogen, and the instability of microbiota, which seriously threaten China's food security and agricultural sustainable development. The decrease of organic matter content in black soil is the core issue in the degradation of black soil. Organisms are the source of all organic matter, and the dynamic balance of organic matter driven by organisms is the basis for maintaining the stability of farmland ecosystem and soil quality. However, the limitation of hydrothermal resources in Northeast China makes it difficult to realize the transformation of organism-driven soil organic matter, which restricts the improvement of black soil quality and the development of conservation tillage technology. Recently, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has launched the strategic priority program "Scientific and Technological Innovation Project for Black Soil Protection and Utilization (Black Soil Granary)", and set up the key task of "modern biological technology for improving the productivity and quality of black soil". Focusing on major scientific issues including the mechanism of soil organic matter dynamic balance driven by organisms such as green manure, and the biological mechanism of low-temperature decomposition of straw, the key task aims to develop revolutionary and disruptive biotechnologies to solve the bottleneck of transformation technology of black soil organic matter, hence to promote the benign balance of material circulations and ecological functions. This will provide important theoretical and key technical support for the improvement of productivity and quality of black soil.