Soils play a crucial role in human health, from food supplies to water filtration and exposure to chemical and pathogens. Healthy, uncontaminated soils and clean water are essential for all life on Earth and are essential for human health. Chemical pollution of soil, water, air, and food is a major concern, with recent scientific evidence linking soil pollution with human health impacts and major exposure pathways. Soil microorganisms have both direct and indirect effects on sustainability, quality, and security of food systems.
Soil health affects human and planetary health through crop production, quality, storage, transportation, food quality and taste, soil contamination, or climate change. Human activities have dramatically accelerated soil erosion, with China’s soil erosion reaching 1.40 billion tons per year, representing nearly half of total water erosion. Soil erosion affects soil health and productivity by removing highly fertile topsoil and exposing the remaining soil, decreasing agricultural productivity and degrading ecosystems.
Soil degradation, including soil erosion and loss of soil structure and nutrient content, decreases crop production and threatens food security. It also leads to increased pollution and sedimentation in streams and rivers, clogging these areas. Soil erosion promotes critical losses of water, nutrients, soil organic matter, and soil biota, harming forests, rangeland, and natural ecosystems.
Soil degradation negatively impacts the environment, can be disastrous for the economy, and can even impact human well-being. The effects of soil degradation include compaction, loss of soil structure, nutrient degradation, and soil salinity. This pollution can harm aquatic life, disrupt ecosystems, and diminish water quality, impacting wildlife and human communities downstream.
📹 The Effects of Soil Pollution on Human Health & Environment
In this video, we will explore the various effects of soil pollution on both human health and the environment, as well as discuss …
Are humans the major contributor to soil erosion?
Soil erosion is a permanent change in soil characteristics, such as fertility, pH, color, humus content, or structure. It occurs naturally due to wind or harsh climatic conditions, but human activities like overgrazing, overcropping, and deforestation can accelerate this process. Overgrazing occurs when farmers stock too many animals on their land, damaging the soil surface by eating vegetation and digging into wet or compacting dry soil with their hooves. This leads to the damaging of the soil structure, reducing the amount of water between soil crumbs.
Soils with less vegetation become exposed, drier, and prone to further erosion by wind and rain. Examples include the Sahel region of Africa, West Ireland, and West Mayo, where soil erosion caused by additional sheep population and additional hooves necessitated further funding. Overcropping, on the other hand, is when land is continuously under cultivation and not allowed to lie fallow between crops, reducing the soil’s ability to produce valuable humus for soil fertility. This results in drier, less fertile soil, which is open for wind and rain erosion.
Over cropping occurs in areas with high demand for crops or large local populations. Many farmers attempt to restore soil fertility by adding fertilizers or artificial nutrients, but some countries lack this opportunity due to poverty or lack of education. In South America, soya is a quick-growing and valuable crop, with Brazil and Argentina being the leading producers. Despite some artificial fertilizers being added, the soil is not allowed enough time to recover its fertility or structure, ultimately being eroded by this human activity.
Deforestation is the process of cutting down large areas of forests, leaving an open landscape. This can be done for various reasons, such as selling wood, charcoal, or fuel, and clearing land for livestock pastures, commodity plantations, and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss, and aridity (drying of soil).
Deforestation accelerates natural erosion by removing nutrients and minerals from the soil, as the source of humus is greatly reduced. The natural dead organic material that supplies the soil with its humus is generally leaves that have fallen from the trees, animal droppings, tree fruit, or decaying trees in the soil. Additionally, deforestation leaves large areas exposed to heavy rainfall or wind erosion, making the soil loose and easier to erode.
In tropical rainforests of Brazil, about 13 million hectares of the world’s forests are lost each year due to deforestation. Overgrazing, over cropping, and deforestation can lead to desertification, the spread of desert-like lands due to these human activities accelerating natural erosion of soil. However, soil erosion can also be conserved through methods such as windbreaks, reforestation, farm techniques, and stone walls.
Windbreaks are natural wind barriers created by planting trees that produce many branches and leaves at the edges of large farmland areas to stop the wind from blowing soil away, which can damage or destroy the soil.
Reforestation is the deliberate planting of trees in areas of deforestation, mountain slopes, or as a general practice to plant a seedling for each tree cut down. EU legislation now controls the minimum height and age of trees that can be cut and offers incentives to farmers to turn part of their land over for forestry. In areas like the Apennines in Italy or the mountainous terrain of the West of Ireland, this is seen as a valuable alternative to crop or animal farming.
Farming techniques such as contour ploughing, stubble planting, and time of ploughing can also be useful methods of soil conservation. Contour ploughing reduces soil creep or mass movement along the slope, while stubble planting acts as anchors to keep the soil in place until the next crop is planted. Farmers have also changed their planting times to reduce the possibility of soil erosion, taking place in wetter conditions when the soil is not likely to become windborne in warm, dry conditions.
Stone walls work like simple versions of windbreaks, building following the contours of the soil to prevent soil erosion down slope and allow rain water to percolate down through the soil rather than straight down the slope.
How does soil erosion affect human health?
Soil erosion is causing significant economic and environmental damage, with the US losing 10 times faster than China and India, and the global damage estimated at $400 billion annually. Over the past 40 years, 30% of arable land has become unproductive, with 60% of washed-away soil ending up in rivers, streams, and lakes, making waterways more susceptible to flooding and contamination from fertilizers and pesticides. Soil erosion also reduces its ability to store water and support plant growth, affecting biodiversity.
It also promotes critical losses of water, nutrients, soil organic matter, and soil biota, harming forests, rangelands, and natural ecosystems. Additionally, erosion increases wind dust, which carries around 20 human infectious disease organisms, including anthrax and tuberculosis.
How can pollution affect human health?
Air pollution can cause various health problems, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), respiratory infections, heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. Health risks vary depending on age, location, underlying health, and other factors. Low-income communities and minority populations are disproportionately exposed to air pollution and more vulnerable to adverse health impacts. The Minnesota Department of Health shows disparities in heart and lung disease by age, race/ethnicity, income level, and geography.
Asthma prevalence also varies by race/ethnicity, with the asthma hospitalization rate among Twin Cities children being over 50 times higher than those in Greater Minnesota. Populations most at risk of health problems related to air pollution include those with lung diseases, infants and young children, outdoor workers, adults over 65, cardiovascular disease patients, those in poverty, those without access to healthcare, smokers, those in occupations with high exposure to contaminated air, and those near busy roadways.
What is one effect that human beings have had on erosion?
Human activities such as rain, wind, flooding, ocean waves, and glaciers, as well as landslides, deforestation, habitat loss, and agricultural activities, can increase erosion rates 10 to 100 times that of non-human geologic processes. This leads to decreased soil quality and water quality by increasing sediment and pollutants in rivers and streams. Urbanization and concrete paving can also increase erosion. Human structures like coastal harbors and jetties can trap sediments, decreasing erosion while increasing rates on adjacent coastlines.
Damming rivers and extracting water from freshwater ecosystems can also decrease erosion, altering habitats and ecosystems. The rock cycle and global change processes and phenomena are interconnected, highlighting the need for further research on the relationship between erosion rates and other Earth system processes.
How does land degradation affect human health?
Land degradation, a major environmental issue, can lead to various health issues such as water and food insecurity, unemployment, gender inequality, conflict, and migration. These ecosystem consequences can directly or indirectly affect human health and well-being. The land, which provides vital resources and promotes human health, is negatively impacted by unsustainable land practices such as desertification, land degradation, and drought. The impacts on human health are mediated by social, economic, and health system-related factors.
The health outcomes are categorized into three groups: non-communicable diseases, injuries, and infections, parasitic and nutritional diseases. The health sector is proposed to take actions to address these challenges.
How does soil pollution affect the environment and human health?
Polluted soil can contain contaminants that can cause short-term health problems like headaches, coughing, chest pain, nausea, and skin irritation. Prolonged exposure can lead to depression of the central nervous system and damage to vital organs, while long-term exposure has been linked to cancer. Contaminants include lead, arsenic, nickel, mercury, copper, zinc, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. To control soil contamination without compromising the economy, several changes must be made.
These include avoiding toxic substances in industrial activities, recycling waste products, promoting healthy agricultural practices like organic manure and farming methods, and limiting the use of chemical pesticides. Adopting eco-friendly practices and promoting sustainable agriculture can help reduce soil contamination and pollution.
What are the impact on human health of degraded environment?
Environmental degradation leads to health hazards like extreme weather and floods, contributes to non-communicable diseases, and adverse effects on animal, human, and ecosystem health. The climate crisis exacerbates these threats, exacerbating their impact and undermining environmental and ecological resilience. Pollution has a disproportionate negative effect on the poor, disadvantaged, and vulnerable, including women and children.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is working to address these issues by promoting sustainable development practices that balance economic growth, social development, and environmental protection. This includes developing policies and programs to reduce pollution, conserve biodiversity, and promote sustainable consumption and production patterns.
How does land pollution affect human health?
Land pollution has numerous health consequences, including climate change, acid rain, deterioration of fields, respiratory health problems, and air pollution. Contamination from mining, farming, and factories can lead to harmful chemicals entering soil and water, potentially killing animals and plants, and contributing to global warming. Landfills emit methane, a greenhouse gas, which contributes to global warming. Acid rain and fog damage forests, depleting essential nutrients and releasing aluminum into the soil, making it difficult for trees to absorb water.
Soil contamination alters soil biodiversity, decreases organic matter, and reduces soil’s filtering ability. It also contaminates water, causing nutrient imbalances in the soil. Air pollution can irritate airways, causing shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, asthma attacks, and chest pain. Exposure to air pollution can lead to lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and premature death. Therefore, it is crucial to address land pollution to protect human health and the environment.
How does soil affect human health?
Soils are essential for nutrient supply and water purification, but they can also contain harmful substances like heavy metals, chemicals, and pathogens that can negatively impact human health. Studies have shown that recycling biowaste can lead to health problems for humans and animals. Additionally, certain compounds contribute to elevated airborne exposure and health risks in the Western Balkans, highlighting the need for effective monitoring and management of soil contamination.
How could the degradation of ecosystems affect human well being?
Deforestation can result in increased malaria exposure and loss of access to wild foods, which can have a significant impact on the health of a specific ecosystem.
How does soil erosion affect people’s health?
Erosion increases wind-blown dust, which can be abrasive and a source of airborne pollutants. It also carries around 20 human infectious disease organisms, including anthrax and tuberculosis.
📹 Why The World Is Running Out Of Soil
Critical topsoil is eroding at an alarming pace due to climate change and poor farming practices. The United Nations declared soil …
I’m a farmer. It’s important to understand that we are all part of the same process in which we all have influence. What you want to eat, how and when you get your food etc all has powerful direct links to the production and processing of it. It’s an industrialised system that is out of balance. If we all find out about how food is produced and processed, what this means for our health, the soils and the environment, we can make decisions about our diets that can translate directly to managing soils in a way that gives better outcomes. It is actually very straightforward, it just needs us to learn some stuff and then step up to the plate.
One of the way to protect soil is through multiple, continuous cover crops but some insurance companies refuse to insure farmers who do this. Without insurance, farmers wishing to do covercropping are also denied government funding. Some of these insurance companies are part of the corporate conglomerates the already get the overwhelming majority of funding for farmers…
As a soils Conservationist I’m very, very glad somone in the media is finally talking about this. I’m a bit disappointed that you didn’t mention the nutrients loss in the foods produced in tilled soils vs no till with cc. Or the ability to stop using fertilizer over time and still improve yeidls in no till with cc and intercrops. A bit disappointed ya didn’t have Ray Archuleta on for this one as well. Still thank you for spreading this information to new people beyond our normal interactions!
Subsidised agriculture is a contributing factor. If the farmer wasn’t subsidised to grow certain crops they would be more inclined to get away from mono culture and introduce grazing animals. The price of farm land in subsidised country’s would also be more realistic in value. If we can farm in Australia without subsidies in our harsh environment why do the Americans need them? Maybe because of greed at the upper levels of business and government.
I’m a farmer that has moved 100% to no till, my biggest barriers are that I’m at the mercy of rental equipment availability (more funding to SWCDs and NRCS offices for drills and combines would solve that) and there’s no way for me to get insurance on my crops if I grow crops over dormant perennial cover crops. Regulation is too rigidly focused on conventional tillage and or the incremental steps away from it and not the ideal solutions.
The best thing that the world can do is to dump ethanol. 40% of all corn grown in the US is only meant to be burned in vehicles even though it makes up only 7% of the US fuel demand. This equals almost 35 MILLION Acres of land that could be put to a much better use of growing actual food, or for conservation land
go organic as possible – plant what you can yourself – gentle bug sprays – invite worms back into the garden to enrichen soil etc regardless of soil – the planet becomes more unstable – practicing preserving your food pickle/dehydrated meat etc, shortages in food is more common and you never know when youll need it before its too late
#SaveSoil ! If we implement policies to ensure a minimum of 3% organic content in agricultural soil, the situation of soil extinction can be reversed! There is still time, but we should act now to ensure a rich soil for future generations. Healthy soil also acts as a major carbon sink and water shed, alleviating problems with regards to water scarcity and carbon emissions. Soil is not dead, it is the living earth that nurtures us all. <3 Soil is not a resource, it is the source. It isn't soil shortage but soil extinction.
Its a result of Industrial farming that has happened in my lifetime. This is all a result of the end of small diversified farms of my childhood. Plowing isn’t bad if its done correctly. It’s counterintuitive, to rotate and this farm system is what i’m using and i also use small equipment and horses. It’s worked well for the Amish and my forefathers.
Rodale Institute was largely narrating this article. Rodale put out fantastic books about organic gardening and surrounding issues decades ago and should be a household name. Do look up some of their books and materials. They’ve been on the mission since before I was born, and I’m not young. Thank goodness they’re still pushing these issues forward!
now i have heard everything – this is not true. you can enrich your own soil around your home by using organic properties for free and make your own fertilizer as well. organic properties to use grass, wood chips, plants, leaves, worms and rain water. this will improve your soil – how do i know I am doing it myself. Liquid fertilizer can be made from grass, plants, weeds and herbs. soil goes all the way down into your yard for many miles down. take care of your land by adding these organic properties will enrich your soil. make your own mulch, top soil, compost, potting mix and fertilizer. there is information all over the internet to learn how to do all of this for yourself and for free or half the price that the stores want you to buy their products. just keep it simple and give it back to mother nature and she will do the rest for you. plant some trees around your home as well. learn how to grow your own food, fruit, spices, and herbs. have fun growing everything that you need.
Anyone with plots of land, balcony, patio and any space that receives adequate sunlight, no matter how small should look into growing your own food. Vertical gardening is very good for small small living space. Container gardens are great ways to garden on patios and balconies. Do hydroponics or aeroponics if you don’t want soil. Gardening is very flexible and is very rewarding.
I wonder if better composting practices would work. Some ppl don’t use ferts from the store. For instance if you wanted nitrogen for your corn then you start soaking grass clippings. Maybe corn is a bad example bc it has such high nitro demand that grass may not keep up with it but it seems like we have everything we need to make good soil. We have worms, greens 🥬 and browns (cardboard 📦 ) plus some dead rotting trees and rocks and you got a nice nutrient rich soil. Don’t burn yard/land waste, mulch it into a compost pile, or soak it to release its nutrients into the water and use it. It feels like this is the next phony crisis that uneducated ppl will get behind. But maybe I’m missing something.
Such an interesting article. I didn’t realise that antibiotics came from soil and that soil holds 3 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. We are in danger of losing this precious resource. This is one of many critical problems facing humanity at this time. Others include pandemics, resource wars and of course climate damage. These all reinforce each other. An excellent book that talks about these problems and mitigating solutions is called “Great Waves Of Change” by Marshall Vian Summers. I urge everyone reading this comment to take a look. It is good to see solutions being implemented.
This is a joke when no one talks about the #1 loss of soil — building and paving over the soil by humans for homes, schools, stores, corporations, government, and roads then all the complaining of flooding with no soil to absorb heavy rains and extreme heat at night from heat absorb by concrete during the day.
Until we deal with out Capitalism problem none of this will get solved. This is 100% the fault of multinational agribusiness. It does no good to talk to or about farmers when something like 80% of the farms are not owned by farmers. Laws, that’s it. Take the power out of the hands of capital. We don’t need food to earn money for European and Chinese institutional wealth. We need food to feed ourselves and sustain our planet. If the system doesn’t do those two basic things (and it doesn’t) then it serves no purpose worth defending. And here’s a wake up call for those wishing to hand wave this away as some new panic. I’ve known all of this since the early 90’s and it wasn’t new information then either. It should come as no surprise that we essentially have the same people in government that we had then. If not by name, certainly by ideology. Lets get rid of the traitors to humanity.
We all are seeing “running out of soil” in recent years just because of one Yogi hailed from India ‘Sadhguru’ who started the #Savesoil movement just for a better future for our children. Without him nothing like this was possible. We strictly stop monocropping rn as its the worst and most inefficient way of farming.
One of the best and very useful information. Thank you, CNBC! appreciate your efforts and trying to bring good news for a change. The problem which is not only to farming but also for several issues is Fed, Govt, private companies & most of the people want to become Rich vs good. So, as long money rules Fed, Govt, Companies and People, you can not solve insurance issues in farming because they too run behind money. First, we did bad very very long ago by going away from organic farming now we are doing further worst by turning farmlands to commercial lands. We wish & hope CNBC network can publish opportunities to change the world to move to good.
In the California Central Valley Delta soil levels on the fields, after a hundred years, are many feet below the highway. Farming is one of our most basic exploits of ‘free’ natural resources. Yet all we still know to do with it is ‘mine’ the soil for it’s ‘something for nothing’ value. Amazes me with the explosion of technology since early this century that we still haven’t addressed replacing or at least augmenting all of the ‘modern’ processes we use to live on the planet with systems more advanced toward something like many of the cyclical closed-loop style things we see existing in nature already. No reason why we couldn’t develop artificial sustainability in everything from chemical reaction chains on up.
As per UNCCD, 52% of the world’s soil is already degraded. Additionally, the United States has lost 50% of its topsoil, and soil degradation costs the country about $37.6 billion in productivity losses each year. In Canada the topsoil loss is estimated at 37%. Soil erosion costs Canadian farmers a staggering three billion dollars every year in crop yield loss. In Ontario, soil organic matter—a key determinant of soil health—is now decreasing on 82 percent of farmland. According to the Scientific American, a study on nutrients in food concluded that we would have to eat 8 oranges to get the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents did with one orange because soil depletion has caused massive drops in nutrient levels in food. In the US alone, soil degradation has led to an 87% loss of micronutrients in our food. This is a serious yet silent crisis unfolding under our feet with significant impact on this and future generations. This is a worldwide issue that is projected to affect every country on earth before 2050, including Canada. From famine to water scarcity, the incoming ramifications of soil extinction are dire. Prairie provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are particularly susceptible, and they account for 60% of agricultural land in Canada. Soil degradation is a “meta-problem,” given that it is a root cause of not only food scarcity, but also water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Experts warn that, at the current rates of soil degradation, 90% of earth’s soil will be degraded by 2050.
In the netherlands we do something really stupid, we climate talks are done with farmers there arent really farmers sitting there. No its lobbyist from the 3 chemical producers in the netherlands and the farmers union which is supported by said chemical companies. And when farmers want to switch to biological farming they dont get the funding to bridge the gap.
Pretty good article. Thank you! We need to start with less soy and corn farming. 77.6% of soy acres (705.77million!) are for animal feed. Ruminant animals should not eat the fruit of corn. Their stomachs are not designed for it and this is one of the reasons they get sick and need antibiotics. Chickens and pigs can. But we don’t even need pig in our lives. Pigs have inferior amino acid and omega3 content in their meat compared to all other meat/eggs. Chickens eating soy for protein instead of bugs have inferior amino acid and omega3 content in their meat/eggs. Japan is a rather healthy country. They ferment their soy before consuming (natto). Humans should not be consuming soybean oil like we do in the USA. We could easily free up 60% of those soy acres (545.70million!) for putting ruminant animals directly on the soil followed by pasture raised chickens that eat insects/larvae out of the animal droppings. This builds and improves top soil. These freed up acres can be rotated with organic vegetable farming. 39% of corn acres (37.44million) are for animal feed. Ruminant animals should not eat the fruit of corn. Their stomachs are not designed for it and this is one of the reasons they get sick and need antibiotics. Chickens and pigs can. But we don’t even need pig in our lives. Pigs have inferior amino acid and omega3 content in their meat compared to all other meat/eggs. 27% of corn acres (25.92million) are for ethanol fuel. Ethanol fuel is a scam. The amount of energy needing by all the equipment to grow, plant, grow, harvest, process corn for ethanol is equal to or greater than the energy you get out in ethanol.
First things first, we need to stop billionaires buying up all the farms and get the farms into the hands of young farmers. Farms are ever increasingly being bought up and used as profit driven enterprises, the contractors on those farms have no choice but to maximize the yield at the cost of the farm’s future, because the owners only care about a high ROI. The land quickly gets burned up and becomes useless, since billionaires love to treat farming as an investment, farmland prices have been skyrocketing and young farmers trying to buy a farm can only afford the land that has already been destroyed. They’re then saddled with unproductive land and can barely break even year-on-year, so the idea of losing a single percentage of yield is life or death. Small-time farmers are much more likely to farm sustainably and care for their animals than these mega corporations, billionaires and their factory farms.
oh, more hype we’re not running out of soil, we’re running out of people who remember how soil used to be managed and we have an excess of well meaning people who think agriculture is the same as “raping nature” almost all the soils cultivated today were created by humans out of silts, sands, clay by cultivation and and deliberate enriching with organic matter; the only exception is the steppe; returning organic matter to the soil would fix it but the sludge from wastewater processing is stored in “sanitary” conditions (as if there is a difference between “soil bacteria” and “fecal bacteria” … no, they’re the same, only the percentages change, some species are more represented in soil, some are more present in waste water solids) or incinerated; soil is called “soil” because it is made of dirty stuff, and our recent ancestors still knew it but TV producers and script writers seemingly forgot except for the steppes dig anywhere there is a field and under the dark soil you’ll find the original “dirt”, which is lighter in color, has little carbon and is barely fertile, it can support plants but it cannot support productive crops without fertilizers; the steppes are an exception because they are dry and the organic matter does not decompose completely because of lack of humidity and gets buried and creates thick layers of silts and sands with organic matter in them that when humans provide water (or it happens to rain more than usual) are productive for a while
My farming family didn’t lose their soil in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl era because they took care of the soil. They stayed, grew food, and kept their community supplied. Chemicals, pesticides, and greed destroy life. Soil is alive. Composting is carbon sequestration. And knowing how to maintain the right mixture of fungal and bacterial organisms is fundamental to nutrient uptake for food crops. You can plant less while providing more nutrition. Industrial farming has destroyed food security.
i get the strong feeling, CNBC’s journalists don’t actually know what they’re talking about. yes, soil is precious. do you know what humanity did to get there? – they deforested all the trees. which means, the issue starts even before soil erosion. you plant the trees, you keep them safe. and when it is time to harvest the trees – hundreds of years later – that’s when the soil is at its most fertile availability. and you repeat the process. till then, they should rely on hydroponics. and planting trees.
So monocropping soy, corn and wheat to feed to livestock is finally coming home to roost. We know how to farm sustainably, but we don’t do it because it does not maximize profits. First step to fixing this problem is to get the money out of politics. Corporations control politicians and will get whatever they need to maximize profit.
Sri Lanka went organic and it ruined agriculture in the nation: maize yields down by 70%; wheat yields down 50%; rice and vegetable yields also down substantially. Sri Lanka went from being a net exporter of rice, to a net importer. Farmers were ruined economically by these low yields, and many were unable to continue farming. Sri Lanka then reversed its policies, the next year, but the damage was done. One year of organic only farming ruined farming in the nation.
TYPE OF SOIL ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Sandy soil,Clayey soil, Loamy soil, Soil is another important abiotic component of our environment.The word soil is derived from the word solum- meaning earthy material.Soil is the uppermost layer of the Earth’s crust. What we see is the surface of the soil.The top layer of the soil acts as medium for the growth of plants.Top soil mainly consists of three kinds of rock particles.These particles differ in their size,appearance and feel.Moisture in Soil Soil contains water in the from of moisture.Moisture- content of a soil depends upon its type and source.The presence of moisture in soil can be confirmed by performing the given activity. 👍👍👍👍👍
Conventional no-till farming requires the application of a lot more herbicide than till farming, so it may solve some problems but increases other problems. What’s needed is organic no-till. Our land was completely destroyed by conventional farming. There are some areas with no topsoil and only 8-10 inches of soil in most other places that were farmed in row crops. Likely the land had many feet of soil in the past.
Broad forking is a better alternative to the plow when breaking new ground for agriculture, for those who can’t afford to buy multiple truckloads of compost a season for years to do no-till. Pioneer crops such as potato and high turn over root crops help break up the soil for future plantings of more fickle crops.
Mother Nature is healing, she is restorative, and never ending. Do your part to help revitalize your soil, stop using pesticides and get into organic gardening, soil regeneration, & Give back to Mother Earth. We cannot “lose” soil we can only damage it. But if we tend to it we can bring it back to life. Bugs and insects are our friends (most) we must learn to coincide with nature and every life as one because we all play a role in the ecosystem. Save the wild bees and soil, Don’t fall into the propaganda that everything is doomed, we can fix this if we ALL DO OUR PART.
Go back to Small Local farms less then 200 acres… Something is to be said about the people who used to only have a 1 room school and only 5th grade education. They had and did what was needed to keep the soil healthy. Large One crop commercial farms are not the answer. Over Educated People are the Problem.. Allow those old farmers and kids to start using the lands as they used too.
Capatalism takes and takes and never gives back. Top soil building is so achievable and not that hard. We just have to give up convenience of getting what we want when we want it. We need to build out land up again. We’ve been draining it for decades and not giving a damn thing back. Agriculture is degrading our lands. Permaculture and small farms are an answer. We need to do many methods across the board to fix this.
no-till is much worse when chemicals are involved Farmers have heard, but close to none of the monoculture farms (farms that rely on a single harvest every year) and not very many other farms are doing anything about it. Everyone wants the promise of big money tomorrow instead of an unorganized slow-release inheritable pension. “They know not what they do.” – J that crop insurance bit……. a farmer should apply for and have to earn municipal insurance instead of being forced to rely on private-monopolized-white-collar investment companies too much FALSE HOPE and too many HALF TRUTHS in this article, but im SURE it started off as a good idea………
Unsustainable farming practices were developed and are used by big agriculture businesses, who then later propagated that to small farmers, promising them bounty harvests. While we talk about the ill effects of these farm practices, it’s important we talk about this as well, because the popular perception is that farmers are commoners, owning a small piece of land, working on them. These farmers are victims of the unsustainable system developed by agro businesses for massive profits, who wanted to sell their chemicals post WW2.
We are not running out of soil ! We are inefficient in our approach to create soil ! All it takes is a few composting facilities that can take in all the plant material toss it and turn it into compost ! We need more animals on the land ! Ducks and chickens do a great job of restoring soil ! I create a few hundred pounds of soil yearly tilling up my chicken coop after the deep litter has composted ! Throw it in the compost bin and till it up real well ! Creating soil should be a passive past time in every nook and cranny on the planet !
“Growing healthy soil”… Soil needs to be teeming with life in order to be it’s most productive. There is a symphony of symbiosis underneath our feet. Check out no till farming techniques to see how to keep your soil moist, nutrient rich, dew capture, etc. Think about it, freshly tilled soil is dark, and without anything to shield it from transpiration becomes arid rapidly. When we talk about water conservation, it’s about using the water we have more wisely, thus using less overall.
subsidies are great but information network is also important. Helps very little to know that their are better ways to do things if you don’t have a way to sift through all the information out there and find they methods that work better. If it’s difficult to find or difficult to understand people won’t adapt new techniques as quickly.
It is amazing to me how all these refugees from the faculty lounge room know more about farming than those who have been doing it all their lives. I remember a recent ignorant governor of New York denigrating farmers and farming and saying anybody could grow a crop of corn…..just put a divot in the ground with the heel of your shoe, throw a seed in there, and spit on it and you will have a crop of corn. This is the kind of ignorance which is common in small children who think hamburger comes from the supermarket.
Nutrients from the soil ends up as sewer mud in cities. A redesign of toilets could make it possible to recuperate this resource w/o a trip to the sewer and put the nutrients back fields that fallow. The Romans used to put sewer mud on the fields directly but crops would end up having certain intestinal parasites. Some treatments would be necessary to avoid something like that. Perhaps ‘cooking’ it by putting it in a compost pile with agricultural residue which becomes very hot. If manure was used with farm residue to produce natural gas first, the heat from this process could eliminate some of the worst bacteria and parasites. One resource that can replenish nitrogen in soil is urine, construction site toilets could harvest it as could farmers who have cattle. Experiments to replicate “Terra Preta” techniques the indigenous people from the Amazon used could help replenish soil quality.
No mention of the Chinese and later European adapted farming methods… The old Medieval 3 field system. First year one crop, Second year a different crop and the third year fallow with animals pasturing. This system does not deplete the soil and the addition of animals allows manure to be deposited back into the soil directly. Also… Hedgerows. Hedgerows do far more than just delineate field edges, it also breaks up the wind, allows habitat for animals and insects. Yes, this means that fields will be smaller, but it won’t be THAT big of a loss. Also… After looking into it, US farms seem to only produce one or two crops. Why not have multiple crops in smaller amounts like British farmers? No farmer over here will have one or two crops. They will have 10 or 20 depending on the size of the farm. I did like the inclusion of green fertiliser… This is a crop grown over winter that really isn’t for cropping, all it does is grow in the soil and help keep it bound and covered. In springtime the crop is ploughed over and new seed is planted and the old crop rots away and gives nitrogen back directly to the roots as it breaks down. It may also be a good idea for US cities to gather the leaf drop it gets and use that as a form of compost? I have seen MULTIPLE articles on YouTube about clearing leaves in autumn in the US. Far worse than we have it here in the UK, that amount of leaves would make a lot of quality leaf mulch to be ploughed in the soil if the soil needs more humus and conditioning.
We don’t grow food in “dirt” – DIRT is what you sweep up off the floor. Nature grows plants and humans grow houses in SOIL or MATERIAL. That’s what my soil science prof said, Dr. Larry Meyers. Learned a lot from that dude (don’t you DARE tell him that). When he said that, i retorted “I’ve seen 20′ tall trees growing IN GARBAGE in the gutter. I deal with that every summer in my job ya’ll supposed to be helping me learn how to do better.” (I wasn’t smart enough to say the latter part). First really job out of college: civil engineer at an environmental engineering firm. Turns out, 9 out of 10 of my projects had all their earthwork in DIRT. All of Syracuse is CFL or ML. Oh well, he still taught me a lot.
There was a lot left out here—some large scale no-till employ GMO’s and herbicides as much as a plowing system. There is a time and a place for each type. Most of this could probably be avoided if the government stopped persecuting and prosecuting small farmers who are doing a good job of direct to consumer sales to customers who are investigating farm practices to find conscientious producers like Amos Miller and Grostic Farms in Michigan. Consumers must be politically active to preserve our right to access farm-fresh food from local farmers and suppliers.
Not running out. We aren’t taking care of what is there and letting it rest enough to become fertile and bacteria filled again, it’s an easy concept grow 7 years, 6 of those years you grow your crops on your land right, that 6th year tho should be spend towards making sure you shouldn’t have to grow that seventh year so the land can rest, we just plant erode repeat
thing is this is the old way of farming.. what if we didnt need soil?. that’s where hydroponics come in, growing plants in water with nutrients which can be added without polluting the environment as its in a closed system. less space required as you can go up vertically rather going horizontal like normal farms, and your not dependent on weather conditions as water is controlled and the climate, less pests, less damage to the environment, bigger yields, it grows40% quicker, cheaper. And even better you can make it aquaponics where you add a two part system with fish at the bottom their water contain the faecal mater and other nutrients goes to the plants which take the nutrients and filter the water then it goes back to the fish, perfect for building one at home as its compact little work only the initial building it.
the basic solution is not that complicated: step 1: pyrolyze plastic, rubber and cardboard waste into (activated) charcoal. – this can significantly reduce rubbish which ends up in land fills and the ocean, and is a use for non-recyclable materials step 2: filter waste water through that charcoal. – this can reduce cost to waste water treatment step 3: mix the resulting biochar into soil – the charcoal is now holding onto lots of nutrients vital for a vibrant soil ecology, and is itself in a highly stable state good for sequestering carbon for the long term. biochar rich soils grow bigger, stronger crops, improve groundwater penetration to assist in maintaining aquifers, and increase the topsoil’s water carrying capacity, providing safeguards against drought. all of your basic environmental disaster scenarios are reduced in severity if we do this. carbon is permanently removed from the atmosphere. soils are vastly improved. water is better conserved.
“Let’s be sustainable” as they drive petrol tractors and need government assistance. If it isn’t profitable for the farmer it’s not sustainable. Plus regenerative agriculture requires a ton more labor. And the honest truth is that most people want nothin to do with farming. Go work on a regenerative farm with dairy cow managed intensive grazing. Usually people can’t make it more than a month. Soil is important for our ecosystems but it’s a farce that we need it to grow crops. Advances in hydroponics allow production just about anywhere with no soil. Crops limited indeed but to get out of our food crisis we have to change our diet away from meat and grains. It’s impossible for regenerative agriculture to produce enough of these grains to keep up with demand. At the end of the day it’s really on the farmer. Honestly most are bad at it and just do it because it’s all they know or they have land. We need more gardeners in local systems that share food and resources. More gardeners not more farmers.
This is great example of False Information. They didn’t mention urban development taking away more farm land at a record pace, not to mention most city’s are near the most fertile land and is being covered up by concrete. Farmers use no-till methods and usually plant multiple crops (cover crops) to prevent erosion. Know the facts!
If only we stopped using destructive chemicals and used 1) animals to regenerate soil 2) cover crops and other regenerative methods. We don’t have a soil problem, we have a problem with everything that has been industrialized for profit at all cost. We have the eco nuts that want us to get off meat, yet they have zero understand of how animals actually regenerate soil, create soil via micro biomes, and aid in carbon sequestration.
Because systems are set up to require profit is the deciding factor in all decisions. This is the legal requirement of a corporation. they must do things to make money. period. Plus, insurances don’t protect them outside of standard operating procedures. Soil running out is 100% a social construct. Like seeds that run out of genetic material to reproduce…
Wouldn’t it help if we make human composting an option everywhere? Burial and cremation both take from the environment. There’s a place in Oregon I believe that offers human composting for less than what a burial would cost and it’s good for the environment. It’s not gross or weird, just currently foreign to us.
That old knowledge is amazing. I saw a documentary about the Samon in Canada,and why they were everywhere. The natives used to gather salmon eggs in moss baskets, them ride to other rivers and release them there . They seeded the other rivers with Salmon, this in turn made the forest grow which gave more game . Those old civilisations were smart, and in tune with nature !
all the landfill that can be used as energy and soil regeneration. People all over the world are turning to permaculture. From Jordan to India to Australia. Entire villages are regreening their lands. Deserts are being stopped in their tracks. It has been going on for decades. The slow ones catching on are the millionaire farmers they talk about here. The food grown naturally is far better tasting and the nutrients are ten times more, than the bland F1 insecticide and synthetic protected farmed crops. Not forgetting how much pollution the farmers bring. Both on land and to waterways.
Some of the speakers appear to be giving answers that are too shallow. Is a fault of the editing? It’s leaving farmers and viewers info-poor. CNBC did a so-so job on this important subject. SMH. Where can one do follow up with true experts? Rodale became ‘regenerative’ when???? Not heard of the others on the topsoil issue. Why are they given a forum now? Choose wiser CNBC. Permaculture is geared to work at solving problems ethically, organically without creating more. It builds soil faster than most organic methods because it stops wastage, etc. Mark Shepard developed an excellent form of it called Restoration Agriculture. Restoration Agriculture rebuilds topsoil much better and quickly compared to regular organic. Chemical Agriculture outright degrades the soil on all levels, and productivity decreases.
A few of us got together in 1971 and started an experimental organic commune. We’d sit around the kitchen table and speculate how in 15 years, nearly all farms would be organic because it made sense. However, that was not the case. 15 years later I was getting an Ag Ed degree and would promote organic ag in the seminars and get a lukewarm response from even my instructors. So 50 years after those conversations, it looks like people are really getting serious. Hopefully, it will replace the conversion to electric cars in importance and put the carbon where it is really needed instead of in the air from the electric power plants that are charging the electric cars. Antibiotics are not needed when we are healthy. Health is determined in the mind.