Takeaways to begin building healthy soil:
- Don’t plow your soil.
- Avoid soil compaction and keep soil covered with organic material.
- Don’t use synthetic fertilizers.
- Don’t use synthetic pesticides.
- Grow organic and support your local organic farmer.
WHAT IS THE SOIL FOOD WEB?
(This information is provided by one of the world’s preeminent soil scientists and healthy soil advocates, Dr. Elaine Ingham, and the Soil Food Web School.)
To understand the Soil Food Web, let’s start with the term ‘food web’. We all know about the food chain, the Animal Kingdom on top of which are us humans. Right? Well, if we look a little closer, we can see that some members of the food chain don’t just eat one thing. That goes for humans too. So the reality is more like a web than a chain.
This is the food web. There happens to be a food web in the soil, too. This is the living part of the soil made up of insects, earthworms, and much smaller microscopic creatures such as fungi and bacteria. Dr. Elaine Ingham has pioneered research into the microorganisms in the soil over the last four decades and has worked with a team of research scientists to understand how they interact with each other and with plants.
The Soil Food Web can be thought of as the soil biome, just as humans have a gut biome responsible for digesting our foods. So too, the soil has a biome which breaks down organic matter and releases nutrients in plant available form. This is how nature has been feeding plants for billions of years.
The four major groups of microorganisms in the Soil Food Web are bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. When in balance, these microorganisms act as nature’s operating system: they interact with each other and with plants to create abundant ecosystems. With a balanced biome in place, the soil can give plants all the nutrients they need, protect them from pests and diseases, provide resilience against drought and flooding…and even reduce the effects of climate change!
Have you ever wondered how forests can be the most productive ecosystems in the world without the need for any fertilizers or pesticides? The answer lies in soil biology. With a healthy biome, the soil can provide plants with all the nutrients they need and with a number of other benefits such as protection from pests and diseases, protection from drought, and from flooding.
MODERN TECHNOLOGY AND SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS
Unfortunately, we humans have disturbed the Soil Food Web in almost all of the soils that we manage, causing it to become unbalanced. As a result, the plants we grow struggle. Plowing is the major cause of the problem as it destroys the larger microorganisms such as fungi and protozoa, leaving the Soil Food Web out of balance. This results in a system breakdown. Nutrients are no longer made available to plants, and protection from diseases is compromised.
Before the Industrial Revolution, humans would plow using oxen or a bull, which provided around three or four horsepower. Modern tractors can yield 400 horsepower or more. So far more damage is done to the soil biome by modern machinery.
The use of chemicals has compounded the problem. The good news is that we can restore the Soil Food Web to most soils within just a few months. This results in a number of benefits both for farmers and for the environment. With a balanced Soil Food Web in place, farmers need not use fertilizers at all.
They don’t need to use insecticides either, as nature’s operating system protects plants from attack. Herbicides used to kill weeds are not required either, as weeds only thrive in conditions where the food web is out of balance. Restoring the Soil Food Web means farmers save money on chemical inputs across the board. It also means that their yields increase dramatically. In some cases, farmers working with Dr. Elaine Ingham have seen yields increase by over 200%.
This is because the soil food web provides plants access to a constant flow of nutrients from soil organic matter and from the soil particles themselves. That’s right. Sand particles contain nutrients. And guess what? Fungi and bacteria can harvest those nutrients. They then make these available to the plant in a process that the plant actually controls. This means that plants get access to the type of nutrients they need precisely when they need them. That’s how you maximize yields and optimize profits.
SOIL EROSION, BIODIVERSITY COLLAPSE & CLIMATE DISRUPTIONS
For the environment, there are a whole host of benefits of having a balanced Soil Food Web. Humanity is facing a number of existential threats. Let’s take a look at how some of these are related to the soil. The most obvious one is soil erosion. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that we only have around 60 years left before all the world’s topsoil is depleted. Other estimates are as low as 30 years.
The Soil Food Web prevents soil erosion by both wind and water by building structure.
Another existential threat we are facing is ecosystem collapse. The UN has recently stated that insect populations have been decimated by around 25% each decade for the last 30 years. That means that there are 57% less insects today than there were in 1989. Bird populations have declined by one third in the last 15 years in parts of Europe. So how does the Soil Food Web help? Well, the UN has identified the use of pesticides as a major cause in the decline of insect populations. A healthy Soil Food Web keeps pests and diseases in check, protecting plants against attack and eliminating the need for pesticides.
Another threat to life on Earth is climate change. Fortunately, the soil is capable of holding tremendous amounts of carbon in the bodies of microorganisms and some mega organisms too. The biggest living organism in the world is not a whale. It’s a fungus found in Oregon that is the size of 1665 football fields. It is between 2,000 and 8,000 thousand years old and it is made mostly of carbon. By restoring the Soil Food Web, we could put a stop to climate change.
SUPPORT OUR WORK
You can support our work and help us educate others by sharing this page so others can learn about the importance of the Soil Food Web.
You can help even more by buying a super cool, colorful organic t-shirt illustrating the Soil Food Web and striking up conversation about the importance of healthy soil with family and friends. Copy this link https://www.bonfire.com/store/gmo-free-usa or click on the image below.
THANK YOU!
