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Save Our Soils
SAVE OUR SOILS
Less than thirty per cent of the world’s topsoil remains in fair or acceptable condition. The fragility of this vital layer can be illustrated through a simple comparison: if one imagines the earth as an orange, the extremely thin topsoil layer is no thicker than the shine on the skin of that orange. An astonishing variety of creatures rely on this ‘shine’ for all of their basic necessities.
Our growing knowledge about soil has formed the basis of new soil services, soil analyses, and many well-intended soil conservation attempts, yet we are still losing soil at an ever-increasing rate. If this trend continues for much longer, our current form of society will eventually collapse – and mainly as a result of practices as simple as over tilling.
At the same time, soil is being damaged irreparably by salinisation, for example resulting from the clear-cutting of forests that are often far away. There are only a few places in natural systems in which soils are well conserved: uncut forests; under shallow lakes and ponds; native grasslands populated by perennials; and mulched and non-tillage agricultural production systems.
A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH
Although this situation may seem extremely gloomy, there is hope in the form of numerous sustainable approaches to soil reconditioning, maintenance and rehabilitation. Surprisingly, amateur gardeners and farmers – not scientists with big fancy labs and federal research grants – are doing most of the real research. Moreover, these people are achieving results: creating high quality soil through water control, modest aeration, and the assemblage of specific plants and animals. And this is done with careful consideration of the sequence of these treatments.
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Food Sovereignty
Food Sovereignty
‘Food sovereignty’ is fast becoming a lost concept; the right to have the knowledge and resources to grow our own food is an essential right. If we don’t have access to nutrient dense organic food, then where do we get the essential energy to heal our body, mind and spirit certainly not from the supermarket where the average ‘fresh food’, in Australia food often travels more than 1000klms from farm to plate? The value of the ‘sprout jar’, the home garden, or locally grown organics is vastly underrated, these are some of the rare places where we get not just food that fills but food that heals.
Organics combined with living soils works to redefine ‘sustainable agriculture’ as: ‘Our ability to build fertility as we improve production and reduce input costs’
One of the major global demands we face today is the heavily depleted state of our soil. The past few decades have seen an unprecedented demand on natural resources from modern agriculture, and this demand has proven to be unsustainable. Modern agriculture is artificially stripping the soil of its long-term nutrients to such extremes that we are essentially eating our grandchildren’s food and leaving behind an agricultural wasteland as a primary burden for future generations.
Current modern agricultural practice is based on a military approach where the first response to imbalance in the productive system is to kill something. In a biological system our first response is to add life, so that ‘Nature can do what Nature does best’, create balance in our productive systems.
One of the primary ways to do this is through the production of specialist compost that is rich in plant nutrient and has a high diversity of beneficial soil microorganisms. This diversity and richness supports the balance and vitality of the growing system by empowering the natural processes rather than overriding them.
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As world food demand rises, soil erosion poses growing threat — Transition Voice
As world food demand rises, soil erosion poses growing threat — Transition Voice.
Outside the entrance of the glorious Hall of Western History are the marble lions, colorful banners, and huge stone columns. Step inside, and the popular exhibits include ancient Egypt, classical Greece, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, Gutenberg, Magellan, Columbus, Galileo, and so on. If we cut a hole in the fence, and sneak around to the rear of the building, we find the dumpsters, derelicts, mangy dogs, and environmental history.
The Darwin of environmental history was George Perkins Marsh, who published Man and Nature in 1864 (free download). Few educated people today have ever heard of this visionary. Inspired by Marsh, Walter Lowdermilk, of the Soil Conservation Service, grabbed his camera and visited the sites of old civilizations in 1938 and 1939. He created a provocative 44-page report, Conquest of the Land Through Seven Thousand Years (free download). The government distributed over a million copies of it.
Lowdermilk helped inspire Tom Dale of the Soil Conservation Service, and Vernon Gill Carter of the National Wildlife Federation, to write Topsoil and Civilization, published in 1955 (free download). Both organizations cooperated in the production of this book. Following the horror show of the Dust Bowl, they were on a mission from God to promote soil conservation.
– See more at: http://transitionvoice.com/2014/12/soil-erosion-may-get-us-before-climate-change-does/#sthash.OcsvF4WL.dpuf