Why we should start valuing the ground beneath our feet
Soil is a living entity and as vital to human existence as air and water but it needs protection if we want a safe, healthy and sustainable future, writes Willie Towers
‘ANATION that destroys its soil, destroys itself.” A famous quote from former US President Franklin D Roosevelt at the time of the Dust Bowl in the US. It always reminds me of the remark from my first boss on my first day at the former Macaulay Institute. “Apart from its people, a country’s greatest asset is its land.” Forty-five years on, it still resonates.
As well as COP26 in November 2021, Glasgow is playing host to the World Congress of Soil Science in August 2022. Food production is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions globally, so there is an obvious connection between these two major conferences.
The Congress is being run by the British Society of Soil Science (BSSS) on behalf of the International Union of Soil Sciences. The BSSS won the right to host the Congress against stiff competition in South Korea in 2014 and the support of the Scottish Event Campus and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau was key to this success.
In the public eye, soil has a much lower profile than air and water, but it can be argued that it is as fundamental to human existence as those other media. Ninety per cent of global food comes from land, and despite innovations such as hydroponics and more recently vertical and even underground farming, soil is likely to provide much of our food for the foreseeable future.
We mustn’t forget that, like ourselves, soils are living entities. They breath, they can be damaged and some can eventually cause great harm if they become contaminated or polluted.
Soil is at the interface between air and water and some of the wellpublicised environmental problems associated with them are partly as a result of inappropriate soil management.
We see soil being washed into rivers and streams and bare soil is a source of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere.
For a small country, Scotland has a huge diversity of soil types. The pattern of soils across the country has not happened by chance, it is the result of the interaction between climate, geology, landform and soil biota all acting over time and influenced by human activity.
We must be aware of what we ask different soils to do for us; compare the rich agricultural soils of East Lothian with the blanket peat of Sutherland and Caithness.
Some of our cultivated soils produce near world record yields of wheat and barley and our seed potato crop is exported to many countries across the globe.
The total soil carbon stock in Scotland is approximately 3,000 megatonnes, about 60 times more than in plants and trees. Around half is stored in our peatlands and the Scottish Government is funding a large programme of peat restoration to repair some of the damage done through drainage and afforestation at times when our priorities were different and our knowledge of the impacts, less complete. Soils are also responsible for much of the nitrous dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, a gas which has a much higher warming potential than carbon dioxide. Greenhouse gas emissions from soil is a global problem and Scotland is playing its part in tackling it.
Soil has an amazing biodiversity and we are only now beginning to understand fully what the various bacteria, fungi and other micro and macrofauna do in the soil.
They are often referred to as the engine room of the soil and if the organisms within the soil become stressed through, for example, contamination, the soil engine will start to misfire. Soil biodiversity provides an untapped potential for the pharmaceutical industry: we don’t yet know what life-saving medicines soils will provide us with in the future.
Soils provide numerous hidden societal and economic benefits, as well as the more obvious ones such as food production and growing trees. In Scotland, golf is a major recreational activity and attracts many overseas visitors to play our iconic links courses. What underlies these courses, sandy soils of course!
The World Congress of Soil Science will provide an opportunity to show Scottish soils to Congress delegates during a number of pre and post Congress tours. They will also showcase Scotland’s stunning scenery and culture and allow delegates to savour our warm hospitality.
The BSSS is particularly keen to demonstrate the community-led local food production initiatives within Glasgow; although the Congress is primarily a forum for presenting recent findings in soil science, this needs to be translated into hands-on activity in the real world which has a direct impact on people’s lives.
A recent report in The Herald spoke of the potential of converting an underused golf course into an urban farm. There is strong evidence of the mental health benefits of growing your own food and working with soil.
We hope that the people of Glasgow will also engage with us in the run up to and during the Congress: we are developing an arts and cultural programme which will cover the visual arts and other media, such as the written and spoken word through podcasts, radio plays and soil stories through interviews.