One of my newest obsessions this last year, along with many other people I think, has been buying plants. Throughout the past year as I’ve collected more plants I have learned a lot, and my number one lesson has been to think of the soil as a living being just as much as the plant growing in it. Once I realized this then I started noticing huge improvements in my plants because I understood what the soil needed in order to be healthy. This then lead me on a journey or researching more and more about soil, agriculture, and water pollution. I just couldn’t believe what I learned so I wanted to share this knowledge on my blog.

Soil is so important for our planet. Without it we wouldn’t be able to grow anything, store water, or store carbon from the atmosphere.  If our soil is healthy then it can help us to prevent loss of water during droughts, protect us during floods by properly absorbing water, give us amazing nutrients in our food, help grow large trees and other plants that clean our air and overall make our planet a better place for everyone. Soil is also one of our best allies when it comes to fighting climate change and global warming because it can store more carbon than anything else on earth, but if the soil isn’t healthy and can’t grow plants then it’s just dead, useless dirt.

A good example of poor soil maintenance and health is the 1930’s dust bowl in America. Farmers living throughout the prairies in the midwest ripped up the land and all its natural grasses so they could plant wheat and other crops. Then when the droughts came there were no deep roots in the ground from plants to help the soil retain water, thus causing the terrible dust bowl that lasted almost over ten years. Now of course no one could have known that the droughts or the great depression were coming, but a poor understanding and respect of the soil definitely didn’t help in this situation.

So what are humans doing now that harms soil?

Let’s start off with this fact, farming isn’t natural. That’s very obvious, but I had never really though about it before. Farming and agriculture are a human invention, and guess what, it’s not great for our planet. Well, I guess I should say that large scale farming isn’t great for the planet. Smaller farms or back yard garden farms don’t cause near the amount of soil corruption or pollution that large scale farming does. Whenever something in the ground is growing it’s taking away nutrients from the soil, so in order for the soil to stay healthy it needs to get those nutrients back somehow. In natural settings such as forest and meadows there are vast amount of diverse plants that all give and take away different forms of nutrients from the ground so the soil stays healthy.

When it comes to larger scale farming there is typically only one type of crop being grown over many acres, so the ground is only giving and getting one type of nutrient. In order to give the soil its nutrients back, so that it can continue to be used for farming, many farmers will use large amounts fertilizers or other types of chemicals on the fields. These fertilizers typically contain nitrogen and phosphorous. This can be better for the soil, but it is terrible for the rest of the planet. These nutrients aren’t being naturally collected and stored into the soil because they are dumped onto the field in large quantities, so they easily make their way off the fields and into our water systems causing terrible pollution problems. When this type of pollution happens it is called nutrient pollution.

Nutrient pollution can lead to a widespread problem of creating way too much algae in our water, which is called an algae bloom. Algae blooms are extremely toxic and can cause entire ecosystems to die off, when this happens in a certain areas the area is then labeled a dead zone. And this has been happening all around the world due to large scale farming.

Another aspect of farming that is causing pollution problems in our water (and in our air) is the fecal waste runoff from large scale meat and dairy industries. A lot of this waste is untreated and used on fields as fertilizer, which eventually becomes nutrient pollution. Now manure and compost are both very important to soil, but what I’m trying to explain is that large industrial farms are adding way to much fertilizer to their fields, and since the fields don’t have strong root systems to absorb the nutrients it causes run off that has highly negative effects.

One way that farmers are trying to stop this problem is by growing cover crops to give nutrients back to the soil as naturally as possible instead of using fertilizers, and in many of these places people have begun to see positive side effects in their natural environments. Cover crops are basically plants that are planted not for the purpose of us eating, but for the soil to become healthier from the nutrients that the plant gives. When farmers take good care of their soil they are ensuring that future generations will also be able to grow healthy and organic food. Also I was really surprised to learn that local farming actually feeds more people around the globe than large industry farming. So let’s continue to do better in supporting our local farmers because smaller scale farming is a lot healthier for our planet.

A lot of smaller scale, local farmers are also truing to permaculture farming. This is a type of farming where you grown food in harmony with nature. Where you understand that the resources of the land aren’t just given to you freely without having to give anything back in return, and you create your garden to not only benefit you but to also benefit the soil, plants, insects, birds, water and animals. It takes a lot of work to start up a permaculture farms, but more and more farmers worldwide have found the benefits of this style of farming to be well worth the hard work.

Another great form of farming is urban farming! The more we are able to grow large amounts of food in urban areas using either rooftop or vertical farming (which is usually a type of hydroponic farming) then the more we can convert old farm land back into its natural habitat. Vertical farming uses way less water and soil, and grows over double the amount of food that we are able to grow on the land. I personally think that vertical farming might be the future of agriculture because it is so much easier and so much better for our planet. There’s also a lot more nutrients and flavor in food that is grown in vertical/hydroponic farms. The vast majority of people nowadays live in big cities, so if we could learn to grow large quantities of food within the city and cut down on the amount of food shipment we will cut back on a lot of the carbon we put into the air from transportation.

When we start converting old farming land back into their natural habitats of meadows and forests we will see a huge decline of carbon in our atmosphere, and this will help to stop a lot of global warming. It’s almost like creating our own oxygen farms. Obviously we can’t start getting rid of farm land until we have ensured that we have a new and reliable system of growing food that still feeds just as many people. Also most farmers don’t have the financial ability or time to transition to more eco-friendly types of farming. This means that the responsibilities either needs to fall on government programs giving more funding to farmers, or new farmers that are just starting out and who can build their farms to be more eco-conscious.

So what can we do to help right now?

-Buy food from local farmers when possible, and look for farmers who are making positive eco-friendly changes.

-Grow your own food if you’re able.

-Plant more trees and other types of plants that are native to your area and that are good for the bees!

-Don’t use harsh chemicals on your lawns and instead learn how you can promote the health of your soil right in your backyard.

-Eat less meat and dairy and focus on buying these products locally as well (this always helps the planet in any situation).

-Learn to see the soil as a living being that needs to be respected.

There are so many great resources out there to learn more about the soil and what we can do to help change our communities. Here are some of my favorite videos and documentaries on YouTube.

• Living Soil Film

• The Rise of Vertical Farming

• Visiting the Farm of the Future

• Next Gen Farming Without Soil and 90% Less Water

• The Permaculture Way of Life

• Unbroken Ground | A New Old Way to Grow Food

• 50 Years Ago, This Was a Wasteland. He Changed Everything

• I Grew and Foraged 100% of My Food for an Entire Year!