Paragraph On Healthy Soil

Within recent decades, there has been an experience in the decrease of the soil health and fertility around the world. There are many causes to this, which will be explained later on into this essay. This is a problem that needs to have more focus put on it because soil health and fertility is arguably the basis for all of our foods and without having healthy and fertile soil, there will be a decrease in the amount of crops produced. But not only is the amount of crops produced affected, the overall nutrient level in the food that farmers are growing is lower than ever experienced. This can all be traced back to the loss in the nutrients in the soil due to various farming techniques that have been being practiced widely throughout the world …show more content…
The characteristics of healthy soil will be explained within this paragraph. Usually, when someone is referring to the health of soil, there are five major characteristics that are evaluated. As stated in the SlideShare article, “The capacity of a specific kind of soil to function, within natural or managed ecosystems boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and support human health and habitation.” (SlideShare) The first characteristic that is looked at is whether or not the soil can sustain life and society. This practically means whether or not the soil is good enough to support life. The next characteristic that is focused on is if the soil can provide physical support, which is the actual growing of crops. Another characteristic is if the soil can cycle and store matter, which is important because if it cannot, the soil will become barren and will not be able to be used for farming. If the soil can resist erosion is another characteristic looked upon. This is because if the soil erodes away easily, then human life and farming would not be able to be supported in the area. The last major characteristic is whether or not the soil can store and filter water. This is the basis for whether or not anything will be possible within the …show more content…
But the problem is, the techniques are not widely used because farmers care more about their crop yield than what they are doing to the soil. Within this paragraph, the major techniques that are being used to reverse the current trend of soil degradation will be explained. As the NRCS article describes, “This can be accomplished by disturbing the soil as little as possible, growing as many different species of plants as practical, keeping living plants in the soil as often as possible, and keeping the soil covered all the time.” (NRCS) The first major technique that is being used is to disturb less soil. This goes hand in hand with reducing the amount of deforestation that has been occurring. The more the soil is disturbed, the less healthy it becomes because it will lose its nutrient rich topsoil. Another major technique that has been n=being used in order to reverse soil degradation is to increase the plant diversity within the soil. This is because biodiversity is key to a soils success when it comes to health. More diversity leads to an increase in nutrients and less pest disease problems. A third technique that is being used is keeping a living root growing within the soil throughout the year. This allows for the nutrients to stay within the soil and it also provides food for plants. The last major technique that has been being used is keeping the soil covered, which can