“It’s surely our responsibility to do everything within our power to create
a planet that provides a home not just for us, but for all life on Earth.”
— Sir David Attenborough
Take a moment and deconstruct the last dinner you had …
What foods were on your plate?
Were there vegetables in the dish? Did you have any grain-based items like bread or pasta? Was the protein in your meal sourced from animal meat or beans/legumes? How many seasonings or herbs were used to flavour each portion? Maybe you indulged in a sweet dessert afterwards?
Going even deeper … Think about tracing every piece of your meal back to its formation. So, if you had a salad to start your meal, consider the role of the farm that grew the greens. A healthy head of lettuce can take up to two months to produce. In that time frame, the farmer must ensure the right sun exposure and water the crop a precise, measured amount to create an environment where the greens will thrive.
If there was feta cheese on your salad, a different farmer would have to care for the sheep it was sourced from, ensuring they were eating grass, twigs and legumes grown in a healthy environment—to cultivate the best milk. Then once the sheep had been milked, the producers would complete the 7-step operation of making the cheese.
Grains also require time, care and attention from their farmers, so if you had a pasta dish, know that it went through an extensive process from the first seeds planted, to the sowing and tilling until germination, before harvesting and then later grinding them at a gristmill to make the dough.
The wine you may have enjoyed along with your meal would have started as grapes harvested in a vineyard, then crushed, fermented, pressed, matured and bottled (sometimes for years) before reaching you.
What is the common denominator in the success of all of these items on your dinner table? Healthy soil.
Without it, none of those foods or drinks would exist, yet the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) states that 33% of soil worldwide is already degraded. In the European Union (EU) alone, 61% of lands are impacted by soil degradation. This means that this percentage of soil is no longer healthy enough to support the plants and animals that inhabit its space.
On this World Soil Day, we’ll examine the issues surrounding this severe decline in soil health, reveal the risks associated with leaving things to operate “business as usual”, and discuss ways we can make a difference in the products we purchase, as well as the way we grow and source our foods.
The Root of the Problem
Traditional methods of farming have proven to be destructive to soil. From unhealthy chemical pesticides to nutrient depletion, to the reduction of biodiversity due to monoculture (where the same crop is grown repeatedly in the same space year after year), these common practices are more harmful than fruitful. Despite this, many farmers are resistant to change due to misconceptions on cost and a lack of education on how to implement regenerative methods.
In addition, as the climate warms, it causes a faster breakdown of organic carbon within the soil, which results in a lesser capacity for holding water and damage to the soil structure. And we mustn’t forget that extreme weather events (often escalated by climate change) such as tropical storms and droughts, that can leave soil in certain areas untenable.
Nature's Prescription
When we’re ill, if we have the resources, we seek medical attention to obtain a cure. In the case of soil, the good news is that there’s a solution for healing and preserving the soil that’s still viable: Regenerative agriculture.
If you’ve watched the documentary, Kiss the Ground, you learned how returning to more natural methods of farming can restore the health of fertile land and utilize its benefits for decades to come. If you saw its sequel, Common Ground, you’ll see evidence of what happens when farmers adapt these practices (spoiler: the crops flourish and no one becomes ill from performing regular tasks on the farm).
Going a step beyond, when the soil is healthy, aside from providing a nourishing foundation, it may help heal us, through a practice called “Grounding”.
Preliminary scientific research suggests that the simple act of standing or walking barefoot on the earth’s surface can potentially reduce blood pressure, promote better heart health, act as a mood booster and more. Read an overview of what it is and how it works on Health.com
How to Help
The awful truth is that if we don’t convince more farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices, our food supply could be endangered as early as 60 years from now. But if we aren’t in the industry, what can we do to foster this? Thankfully there are many actions we can take:
Education. The first step is to read up on the overall solution, which is easy to do with Kiss the Ground’s free Guide to Regenerative Agriculture.
Advocacy. If you’d like to represent your community and become a positive mouthpiece for the grassroots movement, Kiss the Ground offers a course for a small fee that will provide all the training you need to become an informed Soil Advocate.
Consumption. If we purchase foods from regenerative farmers, we enable them to thrive and continue their healthy practices of properly cultivating the soil. Soil Centric allows you to buy directly from regenerative producers. The Earth Hero app enables you to find regenerative farms in your community. Regenerative International updates a searchable map in real time of regenerative farms across the world. You can also look at your local grocery store or farmers’ market for items labeled as “regenerative”, since they are thankfully becoming more common.
If everyone reading this takes just a few moments to thoughtfully consider Mother Earth, the next time they shop, and spreads the word about how easy it is to support regenerative farming, we’ll be well on our way to a better and healthier world for all.…
“Tree Stumping” © Julian Lennon. Find more of Julian’s photography on his Instagram page: @julespicturepalace.
To become a regular donor to support environmental projects such as Kiss the Ground and Common Ground, join the Desert Bloom.
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