Soil Degradation: The Death of the Bedrock of Our Environment

Often ignored, 87% of all life depends on soil

By Jess Allen

Healthy soil consists of trillions of living organisms and inorganic compounds. Soil degradation refers to the process in which the life in soil quite literally dies, and it turns into lifeless sand. Until recently, the state of our soil was often seen as “just another climate issue” and was rarely understood, let alone discussed.

Now many scientists and environmentalists are starting to agree, dying soil is a critical problem — it creates a cascade of catastrophic events.

Solving the problem of soil degradation will impact multiple issues at the same time. For example soil impacts food production, water availability and retention, preservation of biodiversity, climate change, mental and economic well being of farmers, conflict and population migrations — women and children being the most vulnerable.

From environmental scientists we’ve learned some essential facts about soil:

• By 2050, 90% of Earth’s soils could be degraded, unless we act now. (UNCCD, 2020)
• The World Food Organization (WFO) says by 2045 we will be producing 40% less food for over 9 billion people.
• 95% of the food we eat comes from the soil. (FAO, 2019)
• The last 27 out of 30 wars in Africa were over fertile soil. (Sadhguru, 2022)

Lack of fertile soil is a cause of resource wars. Wars kill quickly. Famine is a slow death that makes people desperate. There are stories of parents who have chopped off the limbs of their children to eat, so both would survive.

Photo Credit: History Season @historicalpics

Some may not live in a country where famine will happen, but everyone will see the images and feel the deep suffering of people around the world deprived of food and water. The world we leave to the next generations will likely be living in chaos.

Dying soil has a huge impact on carbon sequestering.

It’s been suggested that healthy soil is a primary method for storing carbon.

• Soil and vegetation have the potential to absorb and reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the level it was before the Industrial Era began in 1850. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2021)
• If the world’s soils are not revitalized, they could release 850 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere due to global warming. This is more than humanity’s emissions in the last 30 years combined. (ScienceDaily, 2020)
• Soil is the biggest terrestrial carbon sink. When land is degraded, soil carbon can be released into the atmosphere, making soil degradation one of the biggest contributors to climate change. (UN Environment Programme in Africa, 2020)

How Soil Dies

Soil dies and turns to sand when the microbial life starves to death due to lack of organic content. Trillions of microbial life exist in soil. 27,000 species a year are going extinct through the lack of regenerative farming practices including:

• over tilling
• lack of ground cover
• lack of animal and plant waste
• overuse of pesticides

Image courtesy of Conscious Planet

Healthy soil only takes a few decades to kill but may take hundreds of years to restore. This is why saving the remaining soil is an urgent matter.

One Solution to Save Soil

In 1988 all of the United Nations members, along with several other countries, came together and created the Montreal Protocol to focus on healing the hole in the ozone layer. It worked. Now it’s time for us to come together to save soil.

Here are a few ways you can help:

• Spend 10 to 12 minutes a day educating yourself and others about soil.
• Adopt the affirmation “We are going to save soil faster than we expected.”

The Conscious Planet Program to Save Soil

The Conscious Planet, Save Soil volunteer movement is alerting people to the disastrous effects of losing our soil. Their 100-day Save Soil campaign officially kicked off on March 21, 2022 and has reached over 3.9 billion people.

Conscious Planet has drafted a proposal to set a global health standard for soil, a minimum of 3% organic content (most of the world’s soil has dropped below 1%).

It’s a simple proposal that gives economic incentives to farmers –who often struggle for survival and profitability– to increase their organic content.

During the 100-day Save Soil campaign, 74 nations signaled their support, many signing MOUs (memorandums of understanding). 194 nations is the aim, and everyone’s voice is needed to help ensure the remaining 122 agree.

“Save soil, let’s make it happen!” Sadhguru

Since the announcement of the 100-day Save Soil campaign at the end of 2021, I’ve personally consumed hundreds of hours of content related to our soil degradation issue. This article is one in a series I plan to write to help educate and to hopefully inspire you to join the movement to save soil.

If you found this article helpful please like it, share it and leave a comment. Questions and suggestions are welcome.