William Shotyk gets kind of worked up when you call soil "dirt."
"Dirt is a derogatory term," says the soil scientist — something unclean you want to wash away. Soil, on the other hand, is a miraculous substance that stores water, slows climate change, provides homes for billions of creatures and transforms tiny seeds into big, ripe tomatoes.
"Our soil is the basis of our civilization," he says. "If we call it dirt, we're underestimating its significance."
Soil is super
Shotyk is the first-ever Bocock Chair for Agriculture and the Environment at the University of Alberta — a position made in honour of Sturgeon County's Bocock family after they essentially donated their farm to the university in 2008. He gave the ninth annual Bentley Lecture in Sustainable Agriculture at the university's Myer Horowitz Theatre last Thursday.
Speaking before about 280 people, he extolled the virtues of soil with all the enthusiasm of Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Soil is more than just minerals and dead plants, he explained. It's the result of thousands of years of weathering and the work of the billions of bugs, bacteria and fungi that live in every square metre of it. "Our soil is alive."
And it keeps us living, he continues. Soil stores some 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon a year, acting as a buffer against climate change. It's also a huge water reservoir.
"If we take all of the rivers in all of the world, our soil contains 50 times more water than that."
Soil can take polluted water and in just 50 years make it so pure that just exposing it to air will contaminate it. "We know that this functions, but what we don't know is how it happens." It's also host to many chemical reactions that can have a direct impact on our drinking water.
Soil is struggling
Yet we're wasting it at a remarkable rate, Shotyk continues — about 45 per cent of the world's agricultural lands are now on the decline due in part to erosion, compaction and acidification. Farmers have bills to pay, he explains, and modern farming practices emphasize yield over soil conservation.
"There's no real consideration there of the quality of the soil, of the health of the soil, of maintaining the soil for subsequent generations."
That has direct implications for our food supply. Healthy people depend on healthy plants, which depend on healthy soil. "Our crop yields are beginning to plateau at the time when our demand for meat, for dairy and for cereals continues to increase."
All that farming is polluting our water. Nitrate contamination and algal blooms are two of the biggest water pollution problems in the world, Shotyk says, and both are caused by over-fertilization. Farmers have also drained wetlands for crops, releasing significant amounts of carbon stored in them to the atmosphere.
Save the soil, save the world
Our best soil is the cheapest place for us to grow high-quality food, says John Bocock, who has worked on the Bocock farm for most of his life, and we're losing it to urbanization and degradation.
"We've got to produce more food for more population with less inputs, and that's going to take some changes in the way we operate."
Recent Swiss research suggests that organic farming produces slightly lower yields than regular techniques, Shotyk says, but at lower costs and with higher benefits to soil health.
"If we can focus on soil health, we're focusing on our sustainability … and the farmer is further ahead because it's costing them less money."
Shotyk encouraged his audience to think of soil not just as a source of food, but also as a path towards a sustainable planet.
"Soil is far more valuable than oil or gold or diamonds," he says, "and we certainly shouldn't be treating it like dirt."
