The Superpower of Soil and Those who Protect It

We’re pleased to feature this piece for World Soil Day guest authored by Diane Martin and Dana Fugate of Mothers Out Front.

Every year on December 5, we celebrate soil and the role it plays in climate stability, food sovereignty, and family health. Why the annual honoring of what’s otherwise called “dirt”? Soil is a foundation for life — plant, animal, and human — on this planet. It is the backbone of farming, forestry, and community. The plants grown in it provide us with food, fuel, shelter, fibers for clothing, and more — including multi-sensory beauty we can enjoy every day.

Soil is also hard at work fighting climate change by sequestering carbon that would otherwise warm our atmosphere. MIT’s Climate Portal explains this soil superpower: “Soils are made in part of broken-down plant matter. This means they contain a lot of carbon that those plants took in from the atmosphere while they were alive. Especially in colder climates where decomposition is slow, soils can store — or ‘sequester’ — this carbon for a very long time. If not for soil, this carbon would return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas causing climate change.”

Because we rely on healthy soil, how we use and manage this resource is key to our quality of life. Unfortunately, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that with current soil practices, a full 90% of the Earth’s precious topsoil is likely to be at risk by 2050. Worldwide, soil is undergoing a crisis of degradation.

Healthy soils are under attack from many of the same forces aggravating climate change, including:

• Floods, erosion, toxic chemical additives, dust storms, hurricanes, and fires are damaging and shifting the upper layer of soil, known as topsoil. Topsoil is where organic matter and microorganisms create a space for flora and fauna to thrive. It is where most soil activity happens.
• Humans are destroying healthy soil through practices such as monoculture, and toxic chemical pesticides and herbicides in farming and forestry.
• Deforestation for large agribusiness farming is releasing naturally sequestered carbon into the atmosphere as corporations reduce thousands of forested acres into grazing areas and single-plant crops.

The healthier our soil, the more nutritious our food. But what makes soil healthy? According to Science Mill, healthy soil requires:

• A strong structure that holds together even when wet or dry. It’s porous and open to allow plant roots to prosper;
• Good water infiltration and retention. In good soil, water filters slowly to allow it to hold onto nutrients;
• Lots of beneficial micro-organisms, such as bacteria and fungi, and macro-organisms, such as insects and worms;
• The ability to effectively release nutrients necessary for plants and a balanced pH between 5.5 and 7.5; and
• A mix of minerals, water, air, and organic matter for favorable growth.

In recognition of this key resource, The United Nations has named December 5 as World Soil Day to raise awareness of the necessity of healthy soil for preserving life on Earth. Numerous activities that celebrate World Soil Day occur globally.

Low-till farming; widespread composting; crop diversification; strategically planting rows of trees for windbreaks; diversifying garden patches by companion planting more than one vegetable in an area; integrating animal husbandry and growing crops – these are some of the methods that will help to revive degraded soil and protect healthy soil. As we celebrate World Soil Day, we aim to raise rural, suburban, and urban landscapes and farms to a higher soil standard to be healthy soil superpowers for the health of our world.

Two organizations in Brazil that are valiantly promoting healthy soil practices are the MST (Landless Workers Movement) and the MCP (Popular Peasant Movement). Last July, Mina Reddy, a Grassroots International donor-activist and member of Mothers Out Front, was privileged to join a Grassroots International delegation to Brazil, where the group visited MST settlements and MCP farms. In both cases, the farmers were very proud of their efforts to restore degraded by industrial agriculture through intricate practices of agroecology, using only natural fertilizers and mulch.

Mina loved the colorful banner exhibited in an MST educational center that said, “Plant trees, produce healthy food.” The members of MST and MCP believe that farmers should be guardians of nature who think about future generations. This includes not using pesticides, not killing forests, and not causing desertification of the land. Farmers were determined that their children and all rural and urban children not be poisoned by toxic chemicals so commonly used by agribusiness. They were also conscious of how their efforts contributed to carbon sequestration and fought climate change. MCP has operations of an impressive scale to restore creole/native seeds and create “agroecological corridors” while the MST is the largest producer of organic rice in Latin America. Both movements provide healthy, fresh food to schools, as part of broader strategies to ensure the right to healthy food for all.

Reflecting on the experience, Mina shared:

At the beautiful agroecological farms we visited, the people who lived and worked there were aware of their important role not only in feeding their families, but in providing healthy food to the wider community while fighting poisonous chemical contamination and the devastating effects of climate change. We need each other to build a healthy world.

World Soil Day gives us an opportunity to focus on the precious resource of healthy soil and how that links to protecting the movements of food producers who are guardians of the soil. It gives focus to what we leave to our children to inherit and how we can best steward our natural resources and the communities that care for them.

Diane Martin and Dana Fugate are volunteers with Massachusett Mothers Out Front Healthy Soil, Livable Future Action Group. Healthy Soil, Livable Future is an Action Group that educates and advocates for healthy soil practices such as low-till and organic farming, composting, native pollinator-friendly habitats, forest conservation, green roofs, and green space preservation. Mina Reddy is a member of Mothers Out Front.