Sustaining the Grassroots with Magic Underfoot

by Jody Smith-Williams

What is the greatest natural resource? Clean air, clean water? Yes, we would certainly be toast without those. But the third resource of the three-legged human survival stool is equally if not more important. It filters the air and the water to make them clean enough to sustain life.

     Look up D-I-R-T in the dictionary and you'll find words like filth, impurity, "something vile". Au contraire. It's time that Dirt comes clean, and receives the respect, care and protection it deserves. Though much ignored and often abused, soil is the foundation of all life on this planet. In Canada they call it "earth," which to me is the most lovely and descriptive term for this magical substance. The Bible says that man is made of the dust of the Earth. Indeed, the same chemical elements found in soil make up our bodies.

     The wonders of soil are vast. Acting as the Earth's digestive system, it receives organic wastes and recycles their nutrients back to plants. It also holds and breaks down toxic wastes. We humans eat the plants, or the animals that eat the plants, and we receive all those nutrients present in the soil. Or not. Our own immune system is inextricably linked to the health of the soil. Epidemics of cancer, heart disease, auto immune disorders, and other chronic illnesses sweeping the country over the last several decades are closely correlated to the steady decline in essential vitamins and minerals in soil. Sure, our eating habits have gone down the tubes as well, but today's food, even the "good stuff," contains only a fraction of the essential elements that support a healthy immune system. Take away the body's natural defenses against disease, and we fall prey.

     Soil is alive and needs to be fed properly just like any other living entity. It also needs periodic rest if it is to continue to produce a rich harvest of nutritious crops. In one teaspoon of healthy, non chemically-treated soil, there are more than 20 billion living organisms. It also happens that soil is one of the very best "sinks" for storing carbon dioxide and keeping it out of the atmosphere. Left undisturbed, the carbon stays in the soil for tens of thousands of years.

     It takes up to a thousand years for natural forces to form one inch of topsoil, but only 40 years to strip that inch away through modern agriculture's destructive farming practices. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides are murder to soil, destroying the majority of those 20 billion microorganisms that should be present in every teaspoon. Like an addict who no longer gets high from the same fix of his drug of choice, depleted soils depend on ever increasing amounts of chemical NPK to produce the same yield. I'm no economist, but the "law of diminishing returns" rings a bell. In this case, those diminishing returns are also killing us.

     Since 1976, one-third of America's topsoil has been eroded. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that between one-half to one percent of the world's topsoil disappears every year. You do the math: at this rate, Peak Soil is something to think about.

     Like so many environmental problems, Peak Soil may seem too big, too distant, too removed from our lives here in Paradise to seem relevant. After all, we live on an island chain of rock that has always been devoid of soil and we do just fine, right? Grocery shelves are brimming and our bellies are full. What will happen, though, when Peak Oil brings Peak Soil into focus, as the cheap food paradigm built on petroleum-derived fertilizers and pesticides that degrade the soil, is no longer cheap? And importing grapes from Chile and pineapples from Hawaii is just not feasible when the price of gas doubles?

     There is an easy thing we can all do, right here, right now, to reduce our "carbon forkprint." We can grow soil. In these hot and humid summer days, with a small amount of attention, compost happens in a month or two. I admit to being a bit obsessed on this topic, but witnessing the miracle of nature turning fruit and vegetable peelings, dried leaves, and yesterday's newspaper into black gold that teems with life and smells like the forest, makes me feel connected to a higher power and just plain happy. That's the power of dirt.