To ensure food security, the world must stop letting fertile soil wash and blow away.
A World Without Soil: The Past, Present, and Precarious Future of the Earth Beneath Our FeetSoil creates life from death. The production of more than 95% of the food we eat relies on soil, a heady mix of rock particles, decaying organic matter, roots, fungi and microorganisms. Yet this precious resource is eroding at a global average of 13.5 tonnes per hectare per year. Instead of nourishing crops, fertile topsoil is ending up in inconvenient places such as ditches, reservoirs and the ocean.
In a chapter on traditional soil-management techniques around the world, Handelsman and Cohen describe deep black “plaggen” soils on Scottish islands, made rich with cattle manure; rice terraces managed for 2,000 years by the Ifugao people in the Philippines; the milpa farming system of the Maya in Latin America, with its 25-year rotation of crops including trees; and compost made of seaweed, shells and plant material by the Māori in New Zealand.
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