By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
There is a lot of scary things about soil that can result in widespread hunger around Mother Earth.
The long-term use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is killing our soil as this makes the soil acidic. Thus, you have to use more and more of such, making agricultural inputs pricier and pricier. You have to keep on pouring more and more money to be able to have decent harvests. Up to a point where it would not anymore be economical. Farmers would be losing from their operations and food would become more expensive every time.
And as the soil becomes more and more acidic, there would come a time when nothing could grow on the land.
The only remedy is to save the soil by increasing its organic content. Thanks to those promoting organic agriculture which got a big boost around this region when the Benguet State University was declared an Organic University during the time of the late Roger Colting as its president not so long ago.
When a parcel of land loses its organic content, it practically becomes a desert. This happens when a land or mountain is bald due to deforestation and bad agricultural practices. And as the winds become stronger due to climate change (one degree Celsius increase in temperature means 20 to 25 KPH stronger winds) the top soil or organic portion is easily blown away or washed away in a typhoon or cyclone.
One of the worst, if not the worst, event where vast areas of sand and soil were blown away was in the 1930s in the USA. Large areas of the Prairies or the Great Plains were blown in a Dust Bowl to as far away as New York City thousands of kilometers away. How much of that was top soil cannot be calculated.
It takes about 600 to 800 years to form an inch of topsoil. Mainly, that’s what supports life. A fistful of topsoil contains trillions of microorganisms and billions of species. Without these, there can be no agriculture or food production to speak of.
The soil must be conserved through good forestry and agricultural practices. Waste away the soil and we will all die.
Sadly, most countries have bad organic content of their soil. The USA has only about 1.25% of organic content of its soil. The highest is Northern Europe which has 1.5%. Southern Europe has 1.1%. Africa has 0% as well as India. That is why people are starving there. To be good, soil should have 3% organic content.
I tried Googling and there is no specific figure as far as that of the Philippines is concerned. What I got in a rush– it was just listed that Philippine soil has bad organic content. The lack of such an important datum is indicative of the lack of government attention on this very important matter.
A soil with 0% organic content is practically a desert. Sadly, more and more fertile lands are becoming deserts.
There is now a thriving international movement called Save Soil started by Sadguru, a yogic guru, with hundreds of millions of adherents. They caused many governments to come out with policies to save the soil.
Incidentally, Sadguru is not my guru. My guru or that of Ananda Marga is the propounder of PROUT (Progressive Socialism) and has written hundreds of books on various subjects like Neo-humanism, history, economics and on various social issues.
**
