Written by You may or may not know that nutritious soil is trending down and catastrophe is trending up. However with this article you can get facts and figures that you can spit out in arguments about why you want to listen to The Cure and contemplate mortality instead of making the house nice in time for the holidays… it’s kind of depressing but! If more people know about it and decide to build back soil we may not all die in a generation and that will be pretty sweet.
What Even is Soil Depletion?
Soil depletion is really soil degradation. The concept being discussed is that a third of the world’s soil is some level of degraded or depleted of nutrients. Which begs several other questions like, what level of nutrients should soil have and where are these nutrients going? Also, like, what is soil made of? So let’s get into the nitty-gritty.
Soil. What is?
Soil is comprised of minerals, living and dead organisms, plant material, air and water. They interact to form the outer layer of the Earth and while renewable in terms of the ability to regenerate, soil is a limited resource all the same. One inch of topsoil can take several hundred years to develop. This is important to remember when bearing in mind that we have less than 60 years’ worth left at the rate we are going with its misuse and depletion.
What’s taking so long?!
Soil is mostly made of weathered rocks that then get brought into the mix by plant roots introducing their organism friends to the newly beaten down and transitional rock who can’t hang with their rock friends anymore cause they aren’t hard enough and let themself get taken out by water and air, pff (see it can be funny, it’s not just the end of everything).
Nutrients? What are?
Soil nutrients include nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium as major players but also iron, sulphur, calcium, zinc and 8 micronutrients. These give the soil micro and macro-organisms all they need to thrive and do their funky soil stuff! These nutrients can be added with organic or mineral fertilizers. 50% of food grown is with mineral fertilizers. These fertilizers can go on to pose a problem in our water by overfeeding algae and causing the water to lose oxygen and then not support life, becoming a deadzone.
So, what’s causing the depletion?
The main culprits are improper industrial farming techniques, deforestation, overgrazing from cattle and other ruminants and bad land management.
It’s got humanity’s nubby little fingerprints all over it. Tilling soil exposes microorganisms to harsh sunlight and slash-and-burn just plain murders them in a fiery death.
The soil houses over a quarter of Earth’s biodiversity. Pachamama is not pleased with our land use and makes it obvious with landslides from loose soil that used to be held together by root systems and less and less nutritious food with each season for us to eat.
Organic Agriculture
There are benefits to organic agriculture observed by the Rodale Institute where organic farming produced 40% greater yields during a drought than inorganic. Knowing that water security is an issue, this statistic is both encouraging and life-saving. It also produces 40% less carbon emissions.
Regenerative agriculture is a part of the organic movement that focuses on soil health as a central tenet.
Fun fact: Industrial Agriculture disturbs and releases carbon stored in the soil.
(This is not fun.)
Fact-fact: Agriculture is responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions.
(Tautology>Cynical misnomer[the alligator mouth eats the bigger one])
Regenerative Practices
Rotating crops; not plowing up the soil which kills the healthy microorganisms of the soil which are then replaced with fertilizers – instead they are just left there, thriving; lots of compost and animal manure to enrich the soil. It also includes allowing ruminants to… you know, ruminate. Not just staying in the same old fields brushing off the same old flies with their tail and hating humans but being too tired from eating less and less nutritious grass to kick that pesky farmer…
Notable is that Regenerative Agriculture can turn land into carbon sinks. The soil sequesters carbon through photosynthesis drawing down carbon to help build plants and roots. And photosynthesis is when light, water and carbon dioxide are used to make up plant energy needs so it can grow. (I had to look it up, there’s no shame here, I never had good bio teachers) Soil could potentially trap 250 million tons of CO2 in the U.S. alone. That said, there is some dispute about this.
Conclusion
There is a lot to take for granted in this modern life. Where food comes from, how asparagus just grows as one lonely lil asparagus sprig by itself, how coffee is a ruby red berry-looking thing when it grows, that chocolate comes in a pod… These are just a few common things people are ignorant about.
Everything that matters comes from the interaction of soil and air and water and light. The fact that we are destroying one of those key – oh no, scratch that, 3 out of 4 are being destroyed… you’re next sun!
Shoot.
This is bad.
But! The answer exists. Now the question is, should the answer of regenerative practices become law and how would that be enforced? Licenses and checks at points of sale?
Armchair experts, your time has come. Please opine freely in the comments.
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Sources:
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/soil-degradation.html
https://www.soils.org/about-soils/basics/
How long does soil take to form?
Soil Nutrients: The Key to Meeting the Triple Global Challenge of Food and Nutrition Security, Climate, and Biodiversity
https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/nutrients-and-eutrophication#overview
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/06/05/behind-the-looming-soil-shortage.html
The Root Traits Reducing Landslide Susceptibility
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/what-is-regenerative-agriculture/
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/photosynthesis/
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/claire-oconnor/soil-secret-weapon-fight-against-climate-change
https://www.science.org/content/article/farmers-paid-millions-trap-carbon-soils-will-it-actually-help-planet