Society Starts in the Dirt

"Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of dirt," writes Barbara Kingsolver in the forward to The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land.

In the discussion on sustainable agriculture, the importance of soil is often underappreciated. Our food system, and thus our society, rests on this humble foundation. We are, a Kingsolver puts it, "creatures whose cleanest aspirations depend ultimately on the health of our dirt."

Yet, our monoculture-based agrobusiness that relies on abundant use of petroleum-based fertilizers is rapidly degrading our once-lush soils. Soil health depends on the proliferation of a variety of microbes, the growth of which ensures that nutrients remain in the soil throughout the agricultural process. Soils around the world are becoming so depleted of nutrients that some experts are starting to fret over the prospect of "peak soil" -- when all the useful soil is exhausted.

In a recent feature about the real price of cheap food, Time magazine quotes Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): "The way we farm now is destructive of the soil, the environment and us."

Note that he mentions "soil" and "environment" distinctly. Healthy soil, though part of the environment, is so vital to the vitality of the food system that it is exists in its own category. Soil, after all, is an environment in and of itself, an entire universe of busy creatures and organisms that make the world go 'round. As soilhealth.com reminds us, "Soils are alive!"

I imagine that the dirt in our backyards is now more vital than the soil in some of the farms that produce our food. If that's the case, my friends, we are in trouble.

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