Though
not recognized as such at the time, the crisis began with the first
agricultural Green Revolution in the late 1950’s and throughout the
1960’s. Because planners were concerned about human population
outpacing food production, plant breeders started developing new,
high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, particularly wheat and
rice. The newly developed crops were high-yielding because they
managed to pull more nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, phosphorus, and
potassium) out of the soil as compared to older varieties.
In
addition to new crop varieties, science developed pesticides and
farmers applied them to their fields in earnest, especially in the
late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Tons of DDT were dumped onto
fields, thus controlling plant-eating insects. Food production began
to rise.
Apparently,
few people were concerned about any potential impact of poisons on
soil microbes, worms, fungi, and other life forms necessary for soil
health.
At
the same time, the petrochemical industry developed artificial
(synthetic) fertilizers. By about the early 1970’s, worldwide food
production began to increase at an unprecedented rate. Such was the
start of the second Green Revolution. Due to massive application of
both synthetic fertilizers and irrigation water, it lasted to about
1985 or so. Annual grain production increased by 160%.
When
the Green Revolution began, the start of a long period of soil
degradation also began. For quite awhile, it was unrecognized. The
widespread use of DDT on crops (and thus, on soil as well) began not
long after WWII, well before the Green Revolution. It was banned in
the USA in 1972. The primary reason for the ban was the harm it
caused populations of raptors, or birds of prey. The harm to soil
generally was unknown at the time. In agriculture, other poisons
took the place of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). Herbicides
also contributed to the ongoing degradation of soil. So, too, did
the massive use of synthetic fertilizers. To
understand WHY and HOW petrochemicals (in
this case, synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides) cause
the degradation of a most valuable resource, let’s look at soil in
a bit more detail.
Like
all others, soil is a highly complex natural ecosystem.
Most ecologists would agree that a healthy, natural ecosystem is
more complex than anything ever built by humans.
Anything. So, the first thing to keep in mind is: soil is a living
system with more complexity than any machine or system made by us.
That complex, living system is the basis of our food supply. Almost
all our plant and animal food products ultimately come from the soil.
Instead of essentially poisoning it with artificial petrochemicals,
we should be revering it and treating it with the utmost care. [See
Pal, R. 2006 in References.]
Fifty
or more years ago, a good topsoil consisted of 25% air, 25% water,
45% minerals, and
5% humus.
The last item, humus, is partially decayed organic matter. It’s
derived primarily from dead plants, plant parts (such as fallen
leaves, twigs broken off, tree bark, etc.), dead animals and
microbes, and animal wastes. Humus
is crucial to soil fertility.
It provides not only macronutrients
such as Nitrogen
(N), Phosphorus (P), & Potassium (K), and the
secondary
nutrients
Calcium (Ca),
Magnesium
(Mg), and Sulfur (S), but
also the micronutrients Zinc
(Zn), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe), Chloride (a form of Chlorine, Cl),
Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo), and Boron (B). When industrial farmers
use the main synthetic fertilizer made from petroleum, all
the soil gets is macronutients.
Over time, the soil slowly is degraded. Today’s soil contains
humus hovering around 1%,
and that’s only a part of what makes up the Soil Crisis.
Other
Aspects of Soil Important to Humans
About
25% of the world’s land biodiversity is found in soil. One result
of that: biodiverse soil bacteria provide us with new antibiotics.
Also, biodiversity overall makes a soil ecosystem healthier and more
resistant to environmental stresses such as disease in soil plants
and animals, drought, and other damage to soil food webs.
Soil
filters water. For the most part, large groundwater aquifers are
located inside “solid” rock. Rock has many tiny crevices,
cracks, and microscopic pores which allow water molecules to enter.
They accumulate there over thousands and thousands of years. Before
ever getting to underlying bedrock, soil filters the water as it
travels downward. That’s why water from a drilled well generally
is “pure”.
Soil
is an important carbon sink. It sequesters carbon dioxide, thus
keeping excess CO2 out of our atmosphere.
The
mineral portion of soil is composed of various combinations of sand,
silt, and clay. Individual clay particles are so tiny they can be
seen only with a high-powered microscope. As such, they exist in
what’s known as a colloid, or in colloidal form. In that state,
they have a net negative electrical charge. This
means they attract positively charged mineral nutrients
such as calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, etc. The nutrients
thus are prevented from leaching down into the lower depths of the
subsoil, out of reach of many plant roots.
Humus
also exists in colloidal form. It, too, holds nutrients in the
topsoil where they can be absorbed by plant roots. The colloids
making up both inorganic clay and organic humus are the most
chemically active parts of any soil. They are crucial to soil
fertility. Humus is a great source of nutrition for plants, and by
releasing the nutrients slowly
during
decomposition, the plant roots are not “burned” when the
nutrients are absorbed. The petrochemical fertilizer, ammonium
nitrate, sometimes does damage to plant roots by quickly
overwhelming and “burning” them.
Green
land plants get most of their water and nutrients (other than
glucose, which they make themselves) from soil. Such plants not
only are the basis of our food web, but also a significant source of
the oxygen we require to live.
Petrochemicals,
a major cause of soil degradation, damage or destroy soil
biodiversity by killing many different types of microbes which are
necessary to soil health. [See Pal, R. 2006 and Goudie, Andrew S.
2019 in References.] Bacteria, the most numerous of the soil
microbes, work to decompose plant and animal matter. Thus they
promote nutrient cycling. So do fungi and actinomycetes. Some
bacteria can pull nitrogen out of the air and “fix” it into
certain plants known as legumes (e.g., alfalfa, clover, and beans).
Actinomycetes resemble both bacteria and fungi, and they aid in
decomposition of organic matter, thus also contributing to the
cycling of nutrients in the soil ecosystem. In addition to
decomposition, fungi help bind soil particles into aggregates, and so
aid in resistance to wind and water erosion.
Mycorrhizal
fungi in soil are especially important to green plants.
“Mycorrhizal” refers to a plant’s root system. These fungi
live on the roots of plants in a mostly symbiotic (mutually
beneficial) manner. Their hyphae – fungal feeding tubes – allow
the host plant’s roots to take in more water and nutrients than
they otherwise could. The practices of industrial
farming – with their use of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides –
are destroying these valuable fungi. Thus, over time, crop yields
ultimately will be reduced because of soil degradation.
Factory
farming also exacerbates wind and water erosion of soil, thus
contributing even more to soil degradation.
BOTTOM
LINE: the use of petrochemicals on farms, and all the rest of
industrial agriculture, must
be phased out.
Farming and food supply chains must return to a smaller scale in
order to regenerate our soil and cease the poisoning of food
ecosystems. Organic farming, sometimes called regenerative
agriculture, permaculture, or agroecology, is the
best choice forward.
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The excerpt above shows how reliance on Technology can backfire if planners and policy makers are not thinking comprehensively. I see the same thing taking shape today with geoengineers addressing symptoms rather than root causes of our ongoing Crisis.
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Not only my opinion. Be Well, and BE AWARE
