People think, "Oh, soil is dirt and dirt is everywhere." But our lives depend on
soil.
There are places that have already lost all of their topsoil.
What's happening to the soil, and what's happening today, is very scary.
The United Nations declared soil finite and predicted catastrophic loss within 60 years.
We have identified ten soil threats.
Soil erosion is number one because it's taking place everywhere.
When we lose soil, we threaten our food supply, clean drinking water and a lot
more.
Out of the Dust bowl.
The past 100 years, the emphasis was on what can soil do for plants and what can soil do for people.
Tons of priceless topsoil.
And we're now realizing we have to take care of it and reverse that and ask, well, we have soil to manage.
We can't just, just degrade it and leave it.
Millions of acres laid waste by thoughtlessness and neglect.
The impact of soil degradation could total $23 trillion in losses of
food, ecosystem services and income worldwide by 2050.
Soil is the habitat for over a quarter of the planet's biodiversity, so it plays a
very important role in mitigating climate change.
Climate change cannot be separated from food insecurity, from the loss of biodiversity and from
pollution.
Here's why we're facing a silent soil crisis and what that means for the world.
This is the Rodale Institute.
The farm here works on regenerative, organic agriculture.
We grow almost everything that you can grow in Pennsylvania from corn and soybean, wheat,
oats to forages, alfalfa.
This is kale. Oh, kale?
This is actually the birthplace of modern organic agriculture.
Projects we do here all are centered around improving and rebuilding soil health.
We have farming system trial that's been running for 42 years.
It is the longest running side by side comparison of organic and conventional grain cropping systems
in North America.
This is all organic.
The decades long research has found organic agriculture produces yields up to 40% higher during droughts,
can earn farmers greater profits and releases 40% fewer carbon emissions.
How is all of that possible?
The Rodale Institute says it starts with soil.
So when we talk about healthy soil, we are talking about all aspects of the soil, chemical, physical and
biological that should be in a perfect status to be able to produce healthy food for us.
After all, the world relies on soil for 95% of our food production.
Traditionally, soil has been always linked to agriculture, but that's not all.
If the water is not purified by soil, we wouldn't have clean water to use every day.
Soil is the world's largest water filter.
As the water percolates through the soil down to the groundwater, it gets cleaned for us, and
it may start out with bacteria and toxins and all sorts of filthy stuff.
By the time it gets down to the groundwater, it can be pristine and pure.
Soils are also important for ecosystem services.
What's that?
Invisible processes that are taking place in nature.
For instance, carbon sequestration.
We don't see it.
But through all the process that is taking place via the photosynthesis of plants,
the carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere is used by plants to convert it
into energy and that goes through the soils.
Soil contains more than three times the amount of carbon in Earth's atmosphere and four times as
much in all living plants and animals combined.
Look at this NASA map that charted CO2 in the atmosphere over the course of a year.
You'll see it goes red with tons of carbon right when farms across the world are tilling the land.
Then by mid-June, as plants are ready to harvest, it's all green, meaning those plants are absorbing
some of that carbon back, depositing it into the soil again.
Again, with the discovery of a single microorganism in a pinch of soil.
Soil also provides the basis for antibiotics.
Solely through their efforts, the earth has now been made to give back life.
And so today, about three quarters of our antibiotics that are used in clinical settings actually derived
from soil bacteria.
Medicines derived from soil bacteria changed health care.
Removing the top ten causes of death like typhoid fever, tuberculosis and typhus.
Drug resistant bacteria and a lack of new antibiotics could kill millions every year.
Doctors say the world needs new antibiotics to be discovered in order to tamp down on these resistant infectious
diseases.
We know only 1% of what is living in soils.
We need to discover them because otherwise we will have only the consequences.
The major cause for this soil degradation that happens are unsustainable agricultural
practices, overgrazing, deforestation and improper land use, and
changing climate is also worsening that.
By 2050, soil erosion may reduce up to 10% of crop yields.
That's like removing millions of acres of farmland.
Erosion is a natural process, but it can be exacerbated by people.
And now it's much faster than soil formation rate.
In some countries, like the United States, soil erosion is 20 to 30 times faster than soil
formation rate. In some countries, its over 100 times faster.
Take the plow as an example of human impact.
So basically farmers look at tilling as a method to prepare a seed bed because they want it to have a clean field
free of any residue and also soft and firm that allows the seed to germinate and have a perfect
crop. So, we didn't realize that this aggressive tillage every day, every year, year
after year, can also have negative impact on the soil.
And the plow takes soil and overturns it and mashes soil entirely.
It breaks down clods into smaller particles.
Those particles make soil vulnerable to wind and water.
Soil erosion has been accelerated tremendously in the last couple of hundred years as farming
has become more and more intensive.
And most of that is due to plowing.
The good news is we know enough to get to work.
And some of the ways that we're going back to historical knowledge, older knowledge, that's in systems in Australian
Aboriginal culture, in West African culture, in Native American culture.
But I think that knowledge is coming back into play.
Regenerative farming involves a variety of practices.
This includes no till farming, rotational cattle grazing, less synthetic fertilizers and growing both
cover and diverse crops.
Farmers could go to no till agriculture, which means not plowing, plant cover crops, which provide the
cover for the land when the main crop is not there, and also use more mixed cropping where they're
using some of these deep rooted perennials on a small portion of their land.
They could reduce erosion dramatically, if not completely.
We need to try not to destroy the soil structure because below the soil is
organized in a way which there should be a space for the water to flow, for the
oxygen to circulate.
But if you just compact it, your soil is not alive anymore.
You need to ensure that there is always food for your microbes to eat there,
meaning that you need to get organic matter.
Integrating animals is one way to do this.
Think of good old fashioned manure.
Cover crops add organic matter or carbon to the soil.
So that's an example where we really don't have to sacrifice yield at all.
And the practice is relatively inexpensive.
Sometimes farmers can even harvest the crop that's used as the cover crop, and then they have a second line of
income.
Economic studies show it can be more profitable to do this kind of farming.
We worked with over 100 farmers in corn and soy systems across the Midwest and saw that
growing corn about $24 an acre.
And for soybeans, that was $17 an acre reduction in costs.
But they also saw that net farm income when you accounted for the revenue that they got as well, up to $52 per acre
for corn and 45 for soybeans.
According to the USDA, about 21% of cultivated cropland in the US right now is
continuously using no till farming.
Companies like General Mills and PepsiCo are betting big on it.
And companies that manufacture plows like John Deere are making equipment for no till farming.
You need investment because many farmers know what to do.
But they don't have the means, they don't have the tools, they don't have the resources to invest because agriculture,
unfortunately, does not make you rich.
I think right now the current policies are not really encouraging farmers, but it can change.
One of the first steps may be to rethink subsidies.
We really need to find the ways to make it possible for farmers to make the move toward these sustainable
practices. And that can be done through crop insurance, which could reward farmers for adding
carbon to their soil, which will enrich the soil and make it healthier and less likely to erode.
For example, the US government spends billions in crop insurance subsidies.
Subsidies will cost the nation nearly $1 billion in 1940.
It pays farmers when their crop yields or revenues decline from 1995 to 2020,
the program paid over $247 billion to farmers for causes of loss
like drought, extreme weather and declines in prices.
According to the World Resource Institute, some of these programs may encourage farmers to use an excessive amount of
pesticides and fertilizers in the quest for immediate yield improvements, growing more food,
without accounting for how these chemicals can damage the soil and hurt long term productivity.
There's been discussion of a soil subsidy or soil insurance .
For example, crop insurance, instead of being based on how much corn one produced
last year, could be based on the health of the soil.
And so farmers are reluctant to take, say, 10% of their corn out of production
and replace that 10% with prairie plants, even though just that small amount will prevent
most of the erosion that occurs on the land.
They can't do that because they'll get 10% less crop insurance.
That's kind of a perverse system.
In the short term, it costs money to make the change, so we need to compensate farmers for the cost of
making those changes to sustainable practices.
It's a pretty rare win, win, win.
It's good for the environment, it's good for the farmers bottom line, and it's good for society as a whole.