testboner
VIP Member
- Oct 10, 2010
- 1,489
- 1,811
What's running out:
If topsoil disappears, so do we.
According to a paper in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, soils have lost 30-70% of their organic carbon thanks to the plowing up of fields for crop production.
Soil holds 80% of the earth's carbon; 4X more than trees, 3X more than the atmosphere itself. If someone is concerned about climate change, food sustainability, or the human race at all, they should be concerned about our soil as it is the biggest opportunity to sequester carbon and continue to feed ourselves.
There was an article in TIME a number of years ago that calculated we have 60 years of topsoil left at the current rate of degradation.
https://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/
While I don't think this number is accurate, I do think the implied urgency is.
Food production is a biological process that has turned into an industrial and chemical one at the cost of our health and the soil's.
Soil is like a bank, and crops cost a lot of “money” (in the form of nutrients from the soil). You can’t just keep withdrawing, you need deposits or debt...
Chemical fertilizers are like debt. And you need more and more to keep the party (high yields) going. But when the music stops you're left with devalued money (and degraded soils).
To restore the soils we need to restore biological food production where grazing cattle can generate soil (add "deposits" to the bank – a.k.a. manure). And as a bonus, they convert grass we can't eat into the most nutrient dense food that we can eat.
Well-managed animals contribute to food security, ecological function and livelihoods...Heavy reduction of livestock may lead to a fragile food system and societal damage.
www.sciencedirect.com
If topsoil disappears, so do we.
According to a paper in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, soils have lost 30-70% of their organic carbon thanks to the plowing up of fields for crop production.
Soil holds 80% of the earth's carbon; 4X more than trees, 3X more than the atmosphere itself. If someone is concerned about climate change, food sustainability, or the human race at all, they should be concerned about our soil as it is the biggest opportunity to sequester carbon and continue to feed ourselves.
There was an article in TIME a number of years ago that calculated we have 60 years of topsoil left at the current rate of degradation.
https://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/
While I don't think this number is accurate, I do think the implied urgency is.
Food production is a biological process that has turned into an industrial and chemical one at the cost of our health and the soil's.
Soil is like a bank, and crops cost a lot of “money” (in the form of nutrients from the soil). You can’t just keep withdrawing, you need deposits or debt...
Chemical fertilizers are like debt. And you need more and more to keep the party (high yields) going. But when the music stops you're left with devalued money (and degraded soils).
To restore the soils we need to restore biological food production where grazing cattle can generate soil (add "deposits" to the bank – a.k.a. manure). And as a bonus, they convert grass we can't eat into the most nutrient dense food that we can eat.
Well-managed animals contribute to food security, ecological function and livelihoods...Heavy reduction of livestock may lead to a fragile food system and societal damage.
Animal board invited review: Animal source foods in healthy, sustainable, and ethical diets – An argument against drastic limitation of livestock in the food system
Animal source foods are evolutionarily appropriate foods for humans. It is therefore remarkable that they are now presented by some as unhealthy, unsu…
www.sciencedirect.com
