Soil–A Precious Resource Under Threat

Hi WN@TL Fans,

Earth is a blue watery planet, mostly, but the earthen part of Earth is largely covered in a thin skin of soil.   So vital is the soil to our connection to our planet that in some contexts the word “earth” means “soil.”

When it comes to prairie soils, loess is more, as Mr. Tieken would say in the Ag Shop at Dixon High School.  He might also say, “Soil is alive.”  For among the physical particles of sand, silt and clay lives an astonishing range of living things: bacteria and fronteria, fungi and protists, insects and reptiles, voles and moles. Oh, and plants. The loam is their home upon the land. 

As I mentioned last week, when the Morrill land-grant universities were getting going back in the 1860’s, there were at least two leading schools of thought about wealth from the land.

One school was extractive:  how to find and mine valuable ores.  

The other school was regenerative:  how to cultivate the land to grow food, feed, and fiber. This approach led Andrew Draper, president of the University of Illinois from 1894 to 1904, to make a prescient assertion:  “The wealth of Illinois is in her soil and her strength lies in its intelligent development.”

Wind and water help make soil, but they can also carry it away. What’s erosive to soils is corrosive to agriculture and to our capacity to grow food upon the land.  

Developing intelligent ways to keep our soils here at home is a rising challenge for Wisconsin and the world, and it’s the topic this week (October 16) as Jo Handelsman, director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, speaks on “Soil: A Precious Resource Under Threat.”

As she writes:

“Soil erosion remains a largely unrecognized crisis, and yet the loss of this precious resource threatens to cause mass starvation in a few decades. Throughout history, agricultural practices such as plowing have destroyed the architecture of soil, making it more vulnerable to erosion. Many civilizations have collapsed because their soil eroded, leaving people with no way to grow crops. Today we see the same trend in the United States and around the world.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that, on average, soil erodes at a rate of almost five tons per acre per year from U.S. cropland. With soil being generated at less than one-tenth of this rate, the loss is simply unsustainable. Global warming accelerates the crisis, as more frequent severe rainstorms drive soil from the land and induce its release of carbon in the form of powerful greenhouse gases. It’s a vicious cycle, but there is a way out.

“To halt this crisis, consumers need to partner with farmers to make it feasible for them to adopt sustainable practices, such as no-till planting and intercropping. We need a consortium of farmers, scientists, food retailers, and consumer activists to agree upon criteria for certifying farms as “soil safe” and a mechanism to accomplish certification and food labeling. The U.S. has achieved similarly ambitious endeavors before — recycling and fair trade coffee movements — and the soil crisis is worthy of that same attention. The stakes are too high to ignore our nation’s soil.”