The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 33 percent of the world’s soil has been degraded and that this could rise to 90 percent by 2050. According to the FAO, it can take 1,000 years to build up just 2-3 centimeters of healthy soil.
More than half of the soil is degraded
To measure the quality of soil, farmers used to bury cloth in the ground and watch how fast it decomposed. The more healthy bacteria and microorganisms, such as fungi, in the soil, the faster the fabric would disappear. However, when this method is tested nowadays, a piece of cloth buried in the soil can be dug up in the same way even after a year without any damage. Experts say that more than half of the soil used for agriculture in the world is degraded.
In India, which has been struggling with great difficulties in agriculture recently and where almost 30 people commit suicide every day, farmers share that soil degradation is one of the biggest factors besides debt. Sadhguru, the famous guru who wants to find a solution to this situation in India, has launched a global campaign called SaveSoil.
As part of the campaign to improve soil health, Sadhguru is calling for farmers to be provided with incentives to preserve and maintain at least 3 percent organic matter in their soils. Sadhguru said, “If we destroy this, the soil will turn to sand and that’s the end of it. If we don’t tackle the soil problem, we will have to live in a desert.”
Why is soil degrading in my area?
There are many reasons for soil degradation. Overgrazing, continuous cultivation of one type of plant and the use of pesticides are just a few of them. Another factor that negatively affects the soil is the plow technology that revolutionized farming and is used to aerate the soil before planting. The plow, an old technology, has become an indispensable part of agriculture.
In modern agriculture, the soil is turned to get rid of weeds, but in doing so, microbes vital to health are exposed under the soil. Exposed to sunlight, these microbes die and the soil loses its fertility. But alongside other agricultural implements such as the combine harvester, the plow is still favored because it expands the scale, speed and productivity of farming, leading to more land being cultivated more efficiently.
“The priority for technology should be soil and plant health,”
Ben Raskin, Head of Agroforestry and Horticulture at the Soil Association in the UK, says the role of technology in agriculture needs to be reassessed. “The priority for technology should be soil and plant health,” he says. To this end, some companies are developing new technologies that cause the least damage to the soil. For example, seed drills that drill small holes in the soil and drop seeds into them, and robots that plant seeds and remove weeds in a much gentler way as an alternative to the harsh interventions of today’s tools. On the other hand, the plants used as cover crops to prevent the soil from becoming bare are also important. Raskin shares that the technologies used so far have only examined the surface of the soil, but now it is necessary to go much deeper and think about the biology of the soil.
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