Why soil is the future of human civilisation

A civilisation’s strength and secret to longevity lie in the treatment of its soils. The ancient people understood this truth and worked hard for thousands of years, giving us inches of good topsoil. Recalcitrant and destructive civilisations, choosing to go against nature, went as quick as they came.

Our fertile lands, the good hummus-laden fields, and topsoil are the results of the sweat and blood of our ancestors, who worked with nature, cooperating with the environment. They took into account the smallest being, honouring it with love and ceremony.

Many cultures, including our own, have survived so far and continued to draw abundance and sustenance from our land, adhering to this wisdom. Ever wondered why, in most rural areas of India, land is considered sacred and given the honour of one’s mother?

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The desert communities in Rajasthan have long evolved a culture entwined with the desert. Life, agriculture, and society are all governed by the desert. Living in cooperation with nature has given them resilience and humility. They have reverence for it, and in return, they too are gifted with abundance.

Generations of men and women have survived this parched area, thriving. They developed drought- and moisture-grown seeds. They understood nature’s secrets, creating Khadeens and growing crops where agriculture seemed impossible.

When the British East India Company conquered India, their agricultural scientists were stunned at the near-perfect soil conservation techniques Indians had developed over centuries. We had mastered nature-based technologies without the use of agri-chemicals.

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On the other side of the world, when the Spanish conquered Latin America, they destroyed the civilisation and brutally butchered the people. Yet they could not destroy the South American people’s great achievement — the Amazon forest and its rich black soil.

As Western science is advancing, they have been able to understand that Amazon forest was planted by hand on very special human-made soil called Terra Preta, aka Amazonian Black Earth. Their toil still makes the Amazon grow. Even after their deaths, they are caring for all of us here. They could only do this because, for them, their land was their family’s and humanity’s future.

Today, as the world is grappling with soil degradation, the ancient wisdom of all our people is now reverberating as “Our Land, Our Future”. The United Nations has dedicated 2024 to land restoration, desertification, and drought resilience. But does this signal a new approach to nature? One that moves away from conquest into cooperation? This is necessary because the world stands at the crossroads.

The commercial-profit motives have led to many abuses of nature. For example, agri-chemicals, which acted as steroids for the soils, are now becoming the causes of land degradation. Industrial agriculture, even in our own country, is revealing its dark side. Punjab has been suffering for quite some time.

Back in 2013, Punjab reported that 39 per cent of its soils had degraded. As much as 30 per cent of all land in India faces some kind of degradation. Water erosion and over-irrigation are also major causes of land degradation. Once the soils are dead, society is infected with social, economic, and health problems too. Cancer trains from Punjab are still a reality today. From self-sufficient, nature-based synergy, our people are now dissonant with nature and eating the fruits of the discord. This is where our first choice leads us.

Another recent example was the cloud seeding disaster on the coastal Arabian Peninsula. Dubai and Saudi Arabia were flooded. So whenever we try to overpower nature, there are always disastrous consequences. We have tried and failed for centuries; hence, our ancestors took more nature-friendly paths.

This calls for a two-eye approach to nature. We must use our technological advances to understand and work with nature in synergy. Our tools may be modern, but our spirit and our guiding principles need to be aligned with nature.

This approach will require us to maintain our necessities and basic infrastructure, but it will definitely cut down on indulgences. We need to relearn and promote better systems of agriculture to start with. If our food production is aimed at nutrition and ecological diversity, we have a chance to heal our soils and our bodies together. We can once again be builders of soils, not their destroyers.

To become drought-resilient, this is the only sustainable way. A technological solution based on fossil fuels will eventually exacerbate the problem. My appeal is not to abandon anything completely, but for the long-term survival and health of the world, plan a transition towards ecological means of production that conserve energy, water, soil biome, and life energies at large.

By restoring eco-systems, re-greening barren lands, and preventing illegal mining of our mountains and rivers, we can reverse land degradation and desertification. But if we don’t, in the next 50 years, pollution and degradation will lead to a deep scarcity of arable land. The people who control good lands could very well control the future of humanity by manipulating our seed and food supply. So for all our sakes, we must pledge to save the soil.

The author is an independent agri-policy analyst and former director – Policy and Outreach, National Seed Association of India. He tweets at @Indrassingh. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.