Issue #3: Dust Thou Art, To Soil Returneth
Part 1 of 2, an issue introducing the importance of soil and the idea of regenerative agriculture
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As today’s newsletter comes to you at the cusp of a new year, I thought we’d introduce ourselves to ideas of ecological regeneration and growth. In the previous issue, we talked about the financial aspects of clean energy and how we can bring “good capitalism” to bear against the fossil fuel industry. Today, we hark back to the learnings from Charles Eisenstein’s book, Climate: A New Story (introduced in the first issue of this Reader), where the author talks about the importance of saving the soil system to help ecological healing.
When we hear “soil”, a couple of different things come to mind. We usually think of mud, dirt, clay, and maybe whatever it is that our potted plants grow in. While mud and dirt (eroded-rock-mineral-powder) are a part of soil, and are definitely a very important part of soil chemistry, there is a lot more to soil than that. Although we’ve been using (and abusing) soil for nearly everything we do as an agrarian species, we’ve only recently begun to understand that it is not, in fact, just eroded-rock-mineral-powder that our plants grow in. “Soil” is an intricate system of minerals, organic compounds, decaying matter, microorganisms and microfauna – it is a living system, not an inert substrate. Relationships between organisms in soil are as complex as the synergetic symbiosis you would expect to find in a coral reef.
A measure of the complexity of soil is the time it takes to build up through natural processes. It takes at least one hundred years to build up one inch of topsoil. 99% of soil organic matter probably exists in a 15-20 inch sliver of topsoil atop the various strata of soil and rock that make up the planet’s crust. This is because, as you go deeper underground, the organisms are starved for air and light, and there are fewer species that can live in such environments. Closer to the surface, however, the soil is full of all kinds of critters and microbes, each playing a crucial role in recycling the ecosystem’s organic matter – the stuff of the earth.
Colonies of lichen, arthropods (such as beetles and ants), and small reptiles digest organic matter on the soil surface (wood, bark, dry leaves, and so on). Fungi employ extracellular digestion to dissolve and absorb the rest as organic molecules.
The excretions of the first-digesters have nutrients and minerals that are still not “bioavailable” to plants (i.e., they cannot be absorbed directly by the plant’s roots), so they undergo further breakdown. Cyanobacteria and similar microorganisms feed on the undigested sugars and the remaining nutrients, leaving behind trails of organic molecules. Again, fungi (a different species) break down parts of the excrement through extracellular digestion.
Earthworms, nematodes and various other creatures arrive to feed on the microorganisms and all the organic molecules left in their wake. The earthworms churn up the organic molecules, the nutrients and eroded-rock-mineral-powder, breaking apart clods into loose, moist particles. Fungal hyphae (yet other species) snake between soil particles and continue dissolving the molecules that remain too complex or strongly bonded for plants to break down easily.
This is a very generic description of one of the millions of processes that goes into creating soil. There are thousands of permutations of the processes described above, with the roles of each decomposer varying. The species involved in soil-formation vary from microscopic eukaryotes, to 100,000-strong herds of grazing wildebeest. In fact, it is often by several reductions of scale that large-mammal dung is reduced to organic matter that builds up natural soil fertility. (Eg. Bison dung – dung beetle excrement – termite excrement – earthworm excrement – nematode excrement – mycorrhizal fungi)
Interestingly, fungi are a part of this process at every step. Different species of fungi have adapted to breaking down different types of molecules. These can be sugars and starches like those found in plants, or the molecules found in excrement and decaying flesh. Clearly, fungi have their hyphae in all the pies. Although they are so widely found, and are today associated with “healthy soils”, there is not much we understand about why fungi function the way they do.
A relatively new concept is the understanding of the underground mycorrhizal fungi network – a system so complex and prolific, it has been dubbed the “Wood Wide Web”. Mycorrhizal fungi (of which mushrooms are only the fruiting bodies) have vast networks of hyphae, which can spread easily over the area of a square mile, and are attached to the roots of nearly every tree within that area. The hyphae (which look like dense white fibres) actually have the ability to take sugars from photosynthesising trees and transfer them to trees that may not be getting the appropriate nutrients to photosynthesise, keeping the latter healthy in times of stress. We don’t really understand how this ability evolved or even why it exists, but this makes mycorrhizal fungi the wardens of the ecosystems – and an important creator in the story of soil.
Understanding the complexity of bioactive soil is just the beginning. Understanding each creature’s contribution to the thin layer of life-giving, decaying organic matter is the next step. This is not going to be easy - we have already degraded fertile bioactive soils through millennia of questionable farming practices (yes, we’ve been wrong from the very beginning; we aren’t as ‘sapiens’ as we would like to imagine). If this comes as a shock to you, consider the fact that what was hailed as “The Fertile Crescent” a few thousand years ago is now a desert. This is not a coincidence. Historically, major civilisations that were bolstered by agrarian economies eventually collapsed because they over-farmed land and depleted the nutrients in the soil, tearing up the mycorrhizal networks and ploughing up all the good micro-fauna repeatedly, year after year for thousands of years.
Fertilisers, pesticides and the agro-chemical boons of the “green revolution” in the 1900s helped boost soil fertility and increase agricultural yield. This approach towards agriculture continues today, but it provides only a temporary fix and does nothing for cyclical soil regeneration. Soils are drying out, losing their ability to support rich sub-ground biota and are being assaulted by harsher and harsher chemicals that may help crops, but are only degrading the soils further. Increasing amounts of dirt runs off into the water systems, blocking up deltas and over-silting plains. Deforestation is accelerating the degradation of soils in forestland, allowing the naked topsoil to run into rivers, creating a nutrient excess that causes eutrophication and brings down an entire ecological balance.
We can fix the soil.
Easily.
Research has shown that using agricultural practices that work synergistically with a natural apparatus help add organic matter to the soil and can build up topsoil rather rapidly. This increases the carbon sequestration potential of soil. Naked, dry soil releases a lot of stored carbon into the atmosphere when it is rained on or blown away in the wind. On the other hand, micro-fauna and fungi keep the carbon bound within organic molecules. The organic molecules, in turn, are broken down into bioavailable nutrients that microbes further break down into basic minerals and compounds that are then transported from plant to plant over an underground mycorrhizal network. The presence of life in the soil ensures that the soil can absorb more water, and retain moisture for longer dry spells (life creates the conditions for life, remember?). And, there isn’t much we need to do to ensure that the 15 inches of rock mineral powder on the surface of our planet can harbour life.
As soil-management and soil-restoration takes centre stage in conversations about ecological healing, researchers and agro-scientists are beginning to see that the way we can bolster our agricultural resilience is not through chemicals and genetic manipulation; we have to find a niche in natural cycles where we can grow and manage our food without using excessive energy, chemicals and wasteful processes.
The European Bison: Rewilding Europe
While our species has a long history of hunting other large mammals to extinction (or near extinction), we’ve taken up a happy new mantle with the wisent. The wisent, or European Bison (Bison bonasus) is among the large land mammals that were hunted to extinction in the wild – however, there remained about twelve individuals alive in zoos in the 1930s. The last wild wisent was gunned down in 1927 in Russia.
From the twelve captive individuals, scientists were able to breed fifty-four individuals that they began releasing into the wild (in semi-controlled, monitored environments) in 1950. Today, 70 years later, there are about 6,200 individuals living in Europe, scattered around different parts of forest and wild grassland. In 2003, this number was 1800. The jump in numbers has shifted the European Bison out of the IUCN “Endangered” list: it is now considered “Almost Threatened”, a rating better than endangered. The reason the population of large land mammals increases so slowly is because of their reproduction cycles: the European Bison can give birth to a calf every nine months or so – and they bear offspring for about 14 of their 30-year lives. This means that, in a perfect world, the bison numbers increase by 18 individuals for each calf-bearing female. But, in the imperfect wild, this rate is far slower, with some of the original 54 individuals never having mated.
However, because of a 70-year long intensive process of rewilding, the European Bison has made a comeback from the brink of extinction. As we observe them in the wild, we understand more about their role as a keystone species. Much like herd animals in other continents, they “terraform” vast tracts of land, grazing on the grass, trampling the stubble (thus increasing the decaying organic matter in the soil) and fertilising the soil with their dung. They also browse on shrubs and understory plants in forested areas, cutting back excessive growth. By crossing over different ecosystems (and shifting the vegetation and the earth as they do), they create a diverse ecotone at the edge of two systems that may prove to be crucial in building the ecological resilience of a system.
You can read more about the bison rewilding efforts in the links below:
The Life-Bison Blog from December 2020
The Rewilding Europe website describing the restoration of European Bison to their natural habitat
[An Article]
Regenerative agriculture: how it works on the ground
An article by Nick Jefferies
This is a 20 MINUTE read.
Tap on the title to access the article.
In this article, the author Nick Jeffries describes myriad ways in which we can practice regenerative farming. Beginning with an explanation of why the industrialisation of agriculture has degraded the systems associated with food production (soil, water and bio-ecological systems), Jeffries goes on to describe several different methods of restorative farming practices, namely: holistic grazing; agro-ecology, which involves raising livestock, aquatic systems and fruits or vegetables, all interacting with each other in a closed-loop system; zero-budget-natural-farming (ZBNF), a technique which is used in several village clusters in North India; and agro-forestry, which combines a form of subsistence agriculture with forest management practices.
In understanding the ever-increasing scale of agriculture (and what will be required from farms in the decades to come), it is important to seek out and understand regenerative farming practices and propagate better soil-management strategies, and this article is a great place to begin.
[A Talk]
Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life
A talk by David R. Montgomery on the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) channel on YouTube
This is a 1 HOUR long talk
Tap on the title to access the link.
This is a talk by renowned geologist David R. Montgomery. Montgomery describes the various regenerative farming and soil management techniques he has written about in his book, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life. He states that there are three main canons of regenerative farming he has seen to be effective: reducing or stopping the tillage of land, keeping the soil covered with mulch and organic matter, and maintaining a diverse crop rotation. Each of these practices is important as it conserves agricultural soil’s fertility, protects the soil from erosion, and reduces the dependence on pesticides or insecticides to prevent pathogens or blight.
This book and the techniques discussed therein will be described in the next issue. In the meantime, this video is great primer for one to understand how and why Montgomery came to the conclusion he did, and the basis of all his background research. Montgomery’s light, intelligent and charming way of presenting his findings makes it that much easier to digest his brand of anecdotal science.
Where Do I Throw My Carrot Peels?
Over the past year or so, I’ve been experimenting with building up soil organic matter and documenting the decomposition of carrot peels by a specialised culture of insects and isopods. They eat decaying organic matter that goes into the substrate (which was initially an inert substrate) and slowly build up the fertility and moisture retention capacity of this soil.
Do you compost organic waste from your kitchen? Alternatively, does your housing society compost organic waste? If you own a home-composting system, what are the little critters in the composting bins you have?
If, however, you do not compost, would you like to? What do you feel are the main drawbacks of a home- or community-composting system?
You may reply to the email directly, if you have something interesting you’d like to share with me. Or, just to tell me about how you saw an earthworm in your money plant once.
Thank you for reading through this issue of the Climate Catalogue Reader. If you love all the new things you’re learning from this Reader, you can show it by tapping the little heart at the bottom of the newsletter.
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It would be oh so interesting if landscape architects/planners/all-designers approached the soils micro culture as essential. While soil tests are integral to structural computation, if one were to assess the composition for nutrient value, to notice it’s presence at a larger scale, would deem some success. Dirt delights better if there’s more to appreciate than what meets the eye. Something that you’ve done here ofcourse, but I wonder what more to make this common knowledge