Earth Day - Can't live without Soil

Earth Day is on Sunday, April 22.  We tend to talk about this day in many different ways and there are many activities to get involved in to celebrate and appreciate our natural environment.  Many people think of it as a day to do something “green” and protect the environment.  The issue that I see is that most people focus on Earth Day as just that – a day.  This is about more than just a day; it is about a societal change in the way we think about the natural world.  I’m not saying anything new here.  Many have posed the question of change.  As a society, we need to reflect on the very real implications of not taking care of our natural resources and natural systems.  I tend to put soil at the top of that list because I believe soil to be the base on which everything else depends.  At the very least, we need to understand that failure to care for our soil resources leads to failure of our water, air and vegetative systems. Can we survive without those?

 

In thinking about putting together this blog about Earth Day, I had a lot of different ideas.  In the end I went back to an article that I (and many others) critiqued earlier this year regarding degrees in agriculture being useless.  The short-sightedness of that Yahoo Education article still irritates me!  While many responded to this article, I think that one of the best responses came from a student group at Texas A&M University called Farmers Fight.  Their mission is to get American society to understand agriculture and what it means to us as consumers.  They have a video out on YouTube that I think says a lot and I congratulate them on a job well done and calling attention to the all-encompassing importance of agriculture in our society.  You can find the video, entitled “Farmers Fight – Stand Up” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFoGib8AfZo.  Check it out – these students are doing great things!

 

The Soil Science Society of America is also re-launching its I Heart Soil campaign, which has included the successful public service announcements (PSAs) on why soil is important.  If you haven’t seen the PSAs, you can find them here: http://www.iheartsoil.org/.  They are simple yet effective messages regarding how soil is an integral part of our lives and an essential component of our environment.  I have used them in talking with many different audiences and they are appropriate for everyone!  Feel free to use them in your courses, presentations, or ask your local media outlet to pick them up.

Soil and Banking

This is about a random thought that crossed my mind as I was running an errand to the bank yesterday afternoon.  I live out in the country and am surrounded by farmland, which is planted to corn or soybeans on any given year.  As I was driving to the bank yesterday I saw that the fields were being plowed as you would expect in the spring, but it was also a very windy day.  What I saw was a lot of wind erosion going on as the plows were going across the fields.  This started my mind wandering perhaps only in a way a soil geek thinks, but I thought I’d share it with you and you can decide how crazy I am – or perhaps how much I am in need of some vacation time?

If you think about it soil and banking have a lot in common.  Maybe someone else has already thought of this, but I haven’t seen it so I started making a list of comparisons in my head, which I have included for your enjoyment below (keep in mind I am not a banker, so this is simplified): 

Bank	Soil
Initial deposit to start an account	Initial soil development - pedogenesis.
Deposits	Additions to the soil such as precipitation, organic matter, dissolved ions, nutrients, windblown or waterborne materials, chemicals/toxins, etc.
Withdrawals	Losses from the soil including nutrients, chemicals, soil particles and organic matter from erosion, loss of carbon from oxidation of organic matter, leaching of materials due to water movement through the soil profile, etc.
Gains - Interest	With the 5 soil forming factors (climate, parent material, topography, time and organisms) soil develops into a mature soil profile with multiple horizons.
Transfer between accounts	Soil processes such as translocation/transfer of clay, organic matter, dissolved ions, calcium carbonate, etc. throughout the soil profile. Also includes transformations within the soil profile due to weathering that leads to chemical or physical changes within the soil.
Automatic deposits	Precipitation, nutrient cycling, organic matter production.
Automatic withdrawals	Base (natural) erosion, hydrogeochemical reactions, leaching and weathering processes.
Investments	Soil and water conservation, nutrient management, sustainable practices.
Changes in investments	Different management practices, disturbances, changes in the environment or ecosystem, changes in land use.
Loans	Harvesting of biomass for food/fiber.
Interest rates	The time it takes for new soil to form and replace soil that is lost.
Market changes	Anthropogenic influences.
Reinvestment	Manure management, nutrient management, etc.
Assets	Soil quality.
Liabilities	Poor management and not understanding soil processes.
Retirement – well planned	Sustainable soil and long-term productivity.
Retirement – poorly planned	Low productivity, sterile soils that are not sustainable for food and fiber production.

And for those not familiar with basic soil processes - a figure below that I used to use in my Soils 101 course at OSU to provide a little insight: