Our precious soils are the foundations for our food, our feed and our entire planet ecosystems. Human health, vitality and even our way of life is entirely dependent upon robust soil systems.
Soils are crucial to our supply of clean water and the largest store of terrestrial carbon on our planet. They even have individual microbial communities that vary from site to site just as each individual has their own different internal microbial communities in their guts.
In fact careful study of the 2 areas of our soil and our internal microbial environment, would suggest that the health of one is entirely dependent upon the health of the other.
However, our soils have been infiltrated and are under attack. Soil serial killers are on the loose and comitting crimes against humanity.
THE SOIL SERIAL KILLERS
Just as individual
humans have different microbial communities in their guts, the microbial
communities living in soils vary from site to site as well. Recent
research compared the decomposition rates of wood stakes over eight
sites to gain an understanding of soil microbes in forests. The activity
of soil microbes can also tell a story of the value of carbon storage
in soil.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Just as individual
humans have different microbial communities in their guts, the microbial
communities living in soils vary from site to site as well. Recent
research compared the decomposition rates of wood stakes over eight
sites to gain an understanding of soil microbes in forests. The activity
of soil microbes can also tell a story of the value of carbon storage
in soil.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Just as individual
humans have different microbial communities in their guts, the microbial
communities living in soils vary from site to site as well. Recent
research compared the decomposition rates of wood stakes over eight
sites to gain an understanding of soil microbes in forests. The activity
of soil microbes can also tell a story of the value of carbon storage
in soil.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Just as individual
humans have different microbial communities in their guts, the microbial
communities living in soils vary from site to site as well. Recent
research compared the decomposition rates of wood stakes over eight
sites to gain an understanding of soil microbes in forests. The activity
of soil microbes can also tell a story of the value of carbon storage
in soil.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-carbon-forest-soils.html#jCp
Today we have 5 major soil serial killers reeking havoc on all that soil sustains us. The precious resource beneath our feet is being depleted, disassembled and destroyed at an alarming rate. We already have war in Africa a a result of the absence of the food soil supplies.
SOIL CHEMISTRY
Soils work EXTREMELY hard at one thing among many - they make elements in the soil plant ready. It's almost magical how elements are changed into nutrients.This is soil's secret power. They can do this because they are marvellously part chemistry, biology, electricity and magnetic.
Measuring these 4 properties, plus another, is the key to producing real food - nutrient-dense high energy food.
Plants ultimately make these nutrients HUMAN-READY.
But if you've ever heard the phrase "you won't know what you've got 'til its gone" it's absolutely true about where our soils are headed today and fast.
Here is the first indicator that our soil is headed to hell in a handbasket.
RAMPANT DEPLETION OF MINERALS, TRACE MINERALS & THEIR TRACE ELEMENTS
The produce of commercial farming today is like the emperors new clothes - it ain't all it's made out to be.And here's why: minerals, trace minerals & their trace elements are the bare necessities of life. They're needed in 2 specific ways:
- strong structures
- efficient functions
As you now know, these vital components begin as elements in our soil. And also you know that soil makes these elements plant-ready. And plants then make them human-ready.
So it's a chain, a sequence. And the more robust the links in any chain - the stronger and more resilient the whole chain is.
Sometimes people try to circumvent or reinvent this process. Most mineral supplemnents for example are still elements. They aren't even plant-ready let alone human-ready.
The vast majority of calcium tablets fall into this category. They belong on soil - not in the human body.
REPLENISHMENT PRACTICE
Each time we plant our vegetables, fruit, grains and grasses - they take elements from the soil. Growing food is an extractive process.
Problem is, that the rate of soil replenishment commercially doesn't get even close to what's being extracted and absorbed by plants, fruits, grains and grasses. Less is going in to replace whats going out.
The pot empties, the quality drops or the pot itself breaks.
So today, we've got a supply of fruit, vegetables, grasses and grains that look marvellous - lovely shape, all the same size, shiny and packed beautifully. However they're severely lacking in the very reason they're grown in the first place - nutriment. And as you now know these nutrients are specifically the minerals, trace minerals and their trace elements.
Replacing in soil what's been taken out is an additional cost. However the cost in the long run of not replenishing them is far greater still. And the pace of this depletion is out of control.
THE NATURAL DEPLETION
The slow natural depletion of elements from soil began 5,000 years ago. We could easily keep up with this with simple replenishment. However it's since 1940 this has gathered serious pace. It has inceased incredibly. Get this: we've lost more since the 1940's - than in the whole last 5,000 years combined. That's just unsustainable. In any other industry it would be a crime!Today the power for soils to produce more comes from chemical fertilizer - chemical energy. This is almost exclusively NPK fertilizers are just pure energy.
At no point is a farmer rewarded for producing nutrient dense, high energy fruit and vegetables. It's now about quantity per acre - not quality.
Yet if you've ever tasted full powered, full flavoured, nutrient dense vegetables - even a single one on a plate of 'regular' food, you'll know how it brings the rest of the food to life.
THE EARTH SUMMIT
Commercial farming is the major extractive industry on the planet - not mining. And here are the results - some startling figures released more than 25 years ago.In 1992, the official report of the Rio Earth Summit concluded “there is deep concern over continuing major declines in the mineral values in farm and range soils throughout the world”.
This statement was based on data showing that over the last 100 years, average mineral levels in agricultural soils had fallen worldwide:
- 72 per cent in Europe
- 76 per cent in Asia
- 85 per cent in North America.
Most of the food we eat is now staggeringly nutrient deficient.
THE COMPOSITION OF FOODS
In 1927, Dr RA McCance started a study of the nutrient content of common foods at King’s College, University of London. Together with his colleague, Dr EM Widdowson, he published the results in 1940. The publication was called The Composition Of Foods.The analyses have been repeated at regular intervals since. This has provided us a unique picture of the way the composition of our food has changed.
The table below summarises the reductions in the average mineral content of 27 vegetables and 17 fruits, between 1940 and 1991.
Reduction in average mineral content of fruit and vegetables between 1940 and 1991
Mineral Vegetables Fruit
Sodium -49% -29%
Potassium -16% -19%
Magnesium -24% -16%
Calcium -46% -16%
Iron -27% -24%
Copper -76% -20%
Zinc -59% -27%
*The latest edition of McCance and Widdowson’s work was published in 2002, but no updated comparison of the figures has yet been published. However, it is likely that mineral values have continued to fall.
THE MANGANESE SWITCH
Let's take a single element, manganese and see how its depletion effects the food chain. Manganese is known as the elements of life. Its needed in soil at 100ppm. (Calcium is needed in the thousands of parts per million.) Plants take it up from the soil in one specific form after a certain type of microbial bacteria has made it plant ready.
However, its in the leaf where its a real superstar. The leaves of the plant take in light from the sun, like tiny solar panels. The plant then converts it into sugars or from solar energy into chemical energy in the plant.
This process is called photosynthesis and it releases oxygen - the air we breathe - into the atmosphere. The role of manganese here cannot be underestimated. Its a magical role really. And here it is:
You probably wish you could do that sometimes.
There's nothing as incredible as this ability manganese has to become something else for a moment.
Without manganese in the soil there'd be no sugar in the plant and no oxygen for us to breathe.
In the human body manganese is also a real energy hotwire - energy transfer(surprise, surprise), bone strength, building skin collagen...and lots more. So without it we'd have energy problems, tiredness and lethargy, bone and joint problems, aches & pains, sagging skin. Here is a list of comprehensive list of magnanese deficiency symptoms and human manganese transport mechanisms.
Remember, there are more than 70 minerals, trace minerals and trace elements - each with their own deficieny disease and diseases.
CONCLUSION
And if you're wondering how you can help this process - just work some fallen leaves into your garden soil. When all the leaves are brown manganese is in the form your soil thrives on. Then little or no energy is required to get it back into the foodchain.We've now got to get minerals, trace minerals and their trace elemnts back into our soil - and fast. We've got to grow strong vibrant and healthy plants. Then we'll have the abundance of nutrients - in the form that we need to thrive.
Otherwise this serial soil killer will get off the hook for crimes against our planet.
Keep reading the next in the series of Soil Serial Killers.
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