Save Our Soil: The True Impact of Soil Degradation
From growing food, anchoring trees, purifying water, storing excess carbon, to protecting against natural calamities, our soil is quite literally the bedrock of life. Its importance to the sustenance of all life forms cannot be overemphasized. However, unsustainable human activities and the climate change crisis have severely impacted its health to the point that 33% of our planet's soil is already degraded. According to FAO, the situation will only worsen unless we take direct action to protect and revitalize our soil health.
In this blog, we explain the need to combat soil degradation and the role of regenerative farming as a game changer.
What’s Happening with Our Soil?
Degradation of soil is the physical, chemical, or biological decline in its quality. One of the biggest causes of land degradation is soil erosion or the removal of its nutrient-rich and fertile topmost layer. Soil loss through erosion is a perfectly natural phenomenon that happens across the globe, but the scale and the pace at which it’s been occurring in the recent past is alarming.
What’s worse is that current erosion rates are significantly higher than soil formation rates, and it takes up to 1000 years to generate just 2-3 cm of topsoil. The result? Loss of fertile soil, which cannot be recovered within a human lifespan.
Although soil erosion also occurs through natural processes such as wind and water erosion or soil crusting, human activity is responsible for its rapid acceleration in recent decades. Unsustainable human practices have led to the drastic loss of nutrients, acidification, salination, contamination, and decline in soil fertility. These activities range from irresponsible use of agricultural machinery to over-cultivation and overfertilization.
Overgrazing and deforestation are other factors that render soil vulnerable to erosion by removing its protective plant cover. As far as contamination is concerned, industrial mining, and improper waste disposal are some of the biggest drivers behind the leaching of toxic pollutants into the soil.
Why is Soil Degradation a Problem?
50% of the earth’s topsoil has been lost in the last century and a half, and an estimated 75 billion tons are being removed every year. Combine this with the fact that 95% of the world’s food production is dependent on topsoil and we’re looking at an unprecedented global crisis, one that goes beyond the loss of fertile land to include pollution of waterways, increase in flooding, and loss of biodiversity. Soil erosion affects our world as a whole, as Maria, a Fearless Farmers enthusiast (age 14), shared with us as a part of her school project for her Earth Science class.
Soil Degradation in Arable Lands
Depletion in plant cover, soil erosion, increase in salinity, and loss of organic matter directly impact land’s productivity, making it less suitable for agriculture. Up to 40% of land is already degraded and a staggering 90% could be degraded by 2050 according to the FAO. Future land degradation will most likely occur in still arable regions. If unchecked, land degradation could force 50-700 million to migrate and plummet the world’s crop yields by 10-50%.
Clogging Waterways and Increased Flood Risk
Depending on the type of agricultural practices, topsoil may contain sediments or pollutants in the form of fertilizer and pesticide residue. During erosion, these sediments and contaminants make their way into waterways, impacting the flow and water quality. The decline in soil quality also impacts its capacity to hold water. The effects of eroded sediments impairing the flow of rivers and streams could be clearly seen in the 2020 flash floods in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Biodiversity Loss
Topsoil is home to microorganisms, flora, and fauna that support soil function. Poor agricultural practices such as monocropping—growing a single crop year after year—can adversely impact the microorganisms and organic matter.
A study assessing the effects of 75 years of rubber monocropping on soil biodiversity in Thailand revealed a decline in the biodiversity quality index and a deterioration in soil chemical properties from earlier or younger to later or older stages of rubber plantations.
How Does Regenerative Agriculture Heal Soil?
Regenerative agriculture works toward improving soil health, biodiversity, and nutrition of crops through adaptive grazing, diverse rotation of crops, and no or minimal tiling. The holistic and restorative approach toward farming has demonstrated time and again numerous benefits with the potential to slow down or reverse land degradation.
Revitalizes Soil Health and Improves Crop Yield: Responsible farming practices such as crop rotation, planting cover crops, using organic fertilizers, and no-till improve and diversify soil's microbial community - a surefire sign of a healthy soil ecosystem. Such practices also break the lifecycle of pests, pathogens, and weeds. A 6-year study on the impact of diversified crop rotation in North China Plain showed a 38% increase in yield compared to conventional cropping.
Enhances Food Quality: A study published in PeerJ journal made a direct comparison between crops grown in regenerative farming vs. conventional agriculture. It highlighted that, on average, crops farmed regeneratively contained higher levels of minerals, vitamins, and phytochemicals. The presence of phytochemicals (cancer-preventing agents) was reported to be a direct result of improved soil health through regenerative practices.
Builds Thriving Communities: Regenerative farming is not only a restorative approach to agriculture but also a democratized one. It taps into indigenous practices and involves as well as benefits the local community, unlike the highly mechanized industrial farming.
Builds Climate Resilience: Regenerative farming aims to mitigate the effects of climate change through land preservation and sustainable use of natural resources. A group of researchers from the Food System Research Center showed the role of regenerative practices such as cover cropping, rotational grazing, crop rotation, and reforestation in sequestering excess atmospheric carbon, at least as a short-term solution. Long-term mitigation is still heavily dependent on reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuel consumption.
What Can You Do? Build a Thriving Community to Fight Soil Degradation
Combating soil degradation is a challenge that goes beyond borders. It requires us to unite against and replace reckless, industrialized agriculture with holistic farmland management strategies. This is where you come in.
We believe that inspiring our future generations to shift their worldview toward regeneration plays a vital role in saving the world as we know it.
That’s why we created the Fearless Farmers Eco-Literacy Program. This immersive program offers a hands-on approach that encourages learners to connect with the natural world and spark their communities to action!
We are on a mission to foster 1000 regenerative communities by 2030, and our participants include farmers, educators, and community members eager to help rebuild healthy soil ecosystems and climate-resilient food systems. If our goal resonates with you, we’d love to see you join one of our programs.
Learn More About Our Eco-Literacy Programs
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