The Magic of Soil: from Nutritious Food to Climate Resilience
Healthy soil is critical to our future. And healthy soil requires supporting natural ecosystems, which include ruminant animals, rather than processed meat alternatives that rely on extractive crops like corn and soy.
Soil makes the world go round.
We need soil to produce nutritious food, filter water, and mitigate climate change. And not just any soil. We need healthy, living soil with a diversity of microorganisms, minerals, and organic matter.
Around the world, intensive crop production has exploited and depleted soil, compromising its nutrients, fertility, and biodiversity.
The loss of fertile soil will have disastrous impacts globally. Not only will we not be able to produce nutritious foods, but we will not have arable topsoil to even feed the growing population.
Healthy soil = good food:
Soil quality is directly related to the ability to produce quality crops. An estimated 95% of our food is directly or indirectly produced on soil.
As the health of soil degrades, so do the nutrients in our food. Intensive agriculture has stripped nutrients from the soil, resulting in declining amounts of protein and essential micronutrients in fruits and vegetables.
Extractive agriculture practices like monocrops of corn and soy, the main ingredient in fake meat alternatives like Impossible Burgers, significantly contribute to the decline of soil health.
Soils are crucial to food security and nutrition. Further damage to soil will continue to diminish our ability to produce food for the quickly growing global population.
Healthy soil mitigates climate change:
Soil plays an important role in mitigating climate change by absorbing carbon. Grasslands can naturally sequester carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, effectively reducing harmful greenhouse gasses.You have probably heard that forests are important because of their ability to serve as a carbon sink - consuming carbon dioxide pollution caused by humans. However, grasslands and rangelands are more effective carbon sinks than forests because they are impacted less by droughts and wildfires.
Soil is also a key actor in healthy water systems, which is of significant importance in regions that are susceptible to drought conditions. Healthy soil is like a sponge, it can hold more water, improving resilience in dry years. The ability to retain more water also improves water quality by reducing runoff from cropland.
The good news:
There are ways to improve soil health. Farmers around the world incorporate agricultural practices that focus on rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring biodiversity. One of the most important of these practices, commonly known as regenerative grazing, is a method of managing livestock on a piece of land for a controlled period of time and then rotating them to new pasture, allowing the grazed land to rest and recover.
Properly raised ruminant animals can have significant impacts on sequestering carbon, improving water cycles, and producing nutrient rich foods. They can also help increase biodiversity, both above and below ground - the more life underground, the healthier and more fertile the soil.
The many environmental benefits of livestock production - such as upcycling nutrients, making use of non-arable land (land we can’t efficiently crop), improving soil health, and providing manure for crop systems - are often overlooked or dismissed.
Without significant efforts to reverse damage to soils we will not be able to produce nutritious food, manage healthy water systems, or combat climate change.
Healthy soil is critical to our future. And healthy soil requires supporting natural ecosystems, which include ruminant animals, rather than processed meat alternatives that rely on extractive crops like corn and soy.