Heal the Soil

At Ashfount, we know that a thriving foundation is essential to every successful business in regenerative farming and food. And nothing is more fundamental to healthy growth than our most important resource for nourishment: the soil.

Cultivating rich, healthy, living soil is core to our ethos. Almost everything we eat, from plants to animals, comes from matter grown in soil. Yet despite its importance, much of the world's arable land is in a state of degradation and decline.

Many people, including many farmers, still have a poor understanding of soil and of why it needs healing. So it is worth taking a closer look: what soil is, why it is under threat, and how regenerative farming can help.

Looking after the land is how meaningful change lasts. The best way to do it is to heal the soil through methods such as regenerative farming, which goes beyond sustainability to real changes in how we work with the environment around us.

What is soil?

Asking "what is soil?" may sound redundant. We have all seen it and walked on it. But as Fred Kirschenmann points out in his TED talk "Soil: from dirt to lifeline", most of us think of soil as simply dirt, and even many soil scientists have treated it as material that holds a plant in place while fertilizers and pesticides do the real work of growing food.

That picture is wrong. Soil is a living, vibrant community full of organisms: earthworms, beetles and other insects, but also fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms, along with organic matter.

Healthy soil holds so much life that scientists are still unsure exactly how many organisms it contains. According to Ohio State University Extension, a teaspoon of productive soil generally contains between 100 million and 1 billion bacteria. Together, these organisms digest plant, mineral and animal matter and turn it into the nutrients plants need, and those plants feed us and our animals.

What makes soil even more remarkable is that all this life sits in a thin layer on the earth's surface. That layer holds the nutrients we need to grow healthy food, and it does much more. Healthy soil absorbs water and helps prevent floods, and its minerals and microorganisms filter pollutants out of water.

It is also a major part of the carbon cycle. According to FAO figures reported by UN News, the first 30 cm (about 12 inches) of soil holds around 680 billion tons of carbon, almost double the amount present in our atmosphere.

Healthy soil is much more than dirt. It is a large part of a healthy global ecosystem, and it deserves the same respect we owe all living things. Yet it is being damaged at unprecedented rates.

Why our soil needs healing

Regenerative farmers and conservation scientists keep pointing to the gap between healthy, living soil and soil that has been stripped of its ability to nourish us. We depend on soil to feed every human alive today. Yet according to the FAO, around one-third of the world's soil is now degraded, and erosion carries away 25 to 40 billion tonnes of topsoil every year.

The wider picture is just as sobering:

Part of the cause lies in how farming has changed. As modern agriculture intensified, many farmers were pushed into a single role: produce as much food as possible, as cheaply as possible. That meant concentrating as many crops and animals as possible in one place, in huge monocultures, and the effects on soil are now plain to see.

The loss is hard to reverse. As the FAO's Director-General put it, it can take up to one thousand years to form just one centimeter of soil, and yet all of that can be lost in just a few minutes to degradation and erosion. With it goes our foundation for healthy food production.

Still, a growing number of farmers and food businesses are finding ways to heal the soil.

Desertification and land degradation

Desertification is the process by which dryland ecosystems, including croplands, pastures and woodlands, become degraded by both climate and human activity. Degraded drylands lose their biological and economic productivity. Leading causes include over-cultivation, overgrazing, deforestation and poor irrigation.

According to the UNCCD, drylands, where desertification occurs, now cover 40.6% of all land on Earth (excluding Antarctica). Desertification affects arid areas at all latitudes and on all continents.

When the thin layer of soil has nothing covering it, wind and rain carry it away, and with it the land's ability to grow the food we need. This is one reason we believe in managing land holistically: how land is grazed and cropped decides whether its soil stays covered.

How excessive tilling damages soil

Farmers adopted tilling because it let them plant more seed with less effort. Plowing turns the soil over, aerates it and mixes crop residues, manure and weeds into the field. That sounds positive, but over the long term it harms the soil.

Tilling removes the plant matter that covers the soil and leaves it bare, so it holds less organic matter and erodes more easily in wind and water. Undisturbed soil acts like a sponge, held together by a network of organisms. Turn it over, and that structure loses much of its ability to absorb water and nutrients.

The microbes and insects that make up living soil are disturbed too, so they add fewer nutrients. Over time the soil can become lifeless, and farmers come to depend on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Leaving the soil undisturbed is the idea behind no-till farming.

Monocropping and the chemical cycle

Monocropping means growing only one crop on the same land year after year. In a healthy ecosystem, diversity keeps the system thriving: one plant draws on some nutrients, another thrives on others. Grow a single crop, and the soil loses organic matter and is gradually stripped of the nutrients that crop needs.

As the soil becomes less productive, farmers turn to synthetic fertilizers to produce better yields. That can start a vicious cycle: the chemicals upset the delicate balance of microorganisms, which depletes the soil further. With beneficial microbes damaged, plants lose natural defenses against pests and diseases, so more pesticides and herbicides are needed. That breeds pesticide-resistant pests, and still more spraying.

Agricultural chemicals do not stay in the field. They pollute rivers and oceans and harm the animals and plants that live in and around them. They can also put drinking water at risk, including from substances such as heavy metals that are toxic to the human body.

There is a longer-term cost to our health as well. As soil is stripped of nutrients, so is the food grown in it. A study by Davis, Epp and Riordan found that levels of key nutrients in 43 fruits and vegetables declined significantly between 1950 and 1999, including vitamin B2, vitamin C, iron, calcium, phosphorus and protein.

Regenerative farming, the key to better soil health

Regenerative farming is not only about avoiding the harm done by intensive, industrialized practices. Its ethos is actively healing the land: encouraging nutrient-dense, diverse, living soil that hosts a natural array of organisms.

That is why soil health sits at the center of our work at Ashfount, in the stories we tell and in the advice we give farms and food businesses. Healthy soil is the foundation of all healthy, nutritious food. Regenerative farmers use several methods to improve soil health:

• No-till farming leaves crop residue on the surface and keeps soil structure in place. The soil absorbs more water, erosion and runoff fall, and microorganisms can build natural ecosystems that nurture plants and reduce disease.
• Using fewer synthetic chemicals builds fertility naturally and encourages the microorganisms that help fight pests and plant diseases. As a result, farmers need fewer chemicals to protect their crops and yields.
• Cover crops are planted on otherwise bare fields between the main growing seasons. Depending on which cover crop is chosen, they protect the soil from erosion and add nutrients for the cash crop. Clover, for example, makes soil more fertile and reduces the need for synthetic fertilizer.
• Crop rotation and intercropping move away from monocropping by growing multiple crops in a single year. More variety means more diverse plant matter and mulch returning to the soil, which builds fertility over time.

Healing our soil, our planet and ourselves

It stands to reason that healthy soil, which grows healthy plants, leads in time to healthier people. When we can get nutrient-rich food, we get more of the nourishment we need from what we eat.

Some research even suggests that living soil may support our emotional wellbeing. A scientist who made a serum from M. vaccae, a bacterium found in healthy soil, to boost the immune systems of lung cancer patients found that one of the main side effects was an improvement in mood. Other studies confirmed that these microbes have a positive effect on mood in humans.

Regenerative practices may also help with climate change. Plants cannot take nitrogen from the air themselves, but they host bacteria on their roots that convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form the plant can use, and the bacteria trade this nitrogen for carbon. The more we let this natural exchange happen, the more the soil can store carbon as organic carbon, helping to mitigate climate change.

Together, these benefits make a compelling case for putting soil health at the very heart of regenerative farming. When we heal the soil, we move toward farming that supports health at both the individual and the collective level.

Healthy businesses need healthy soil

For many farmers, regenerative agriculture has improved not only their soil but their bottom line. Because soil health is so vital to yields, many find that over time their land becomes more productive and more viable.

Some costs of regenerative farming may be higher, but they are often offset by savings elsewhere, such as fewer pesticides and fertilizers and less labor spent spraying crops. Many farms are finding that these holistic practices are improving their profits along with water filtration and soil and animal health.

To see what this looks like in practice, browse the farms and ranches in our Regen Ag Resources directory.