World Soil Day 2020

World Soil Day 2020 (#WorldSoilDay) and its campaign "Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity" aims to raise awareness of the importance of maintaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being by addressing the growing challenges in soil management, fighting soil biodiversity loss, increasing soil awareness and encouraging governments, organisations, communities and individuals around the world to commit to proactively improving soil health.

The UN has been running World Soil Day now for 10 years and you can find out more about that here.

We believe there will be a lot more media coverage around Soil Organic Matter in 2021 both in the gardening, agricultural and mainstream press and the reason is twofold:

1. The growing concern from the agricultural sector that soils are deteriorating. We recently heard a farmer recount that some of his soil had been given just 20 years left for viable food production. (The media often quotes "only 60 years of crops left". It is a mixed picture and the studies assume we carry on 'as is'!  For a more detailed view of global soils, the paper released via Lancaster University is a good start.

Regenerative agriculture is the latest buzz word to tackle and address this challenge. If we had to pin down what this term means, it is on the path to “organic” and the core premise is the restoration of Soil Organic Matter (SOM) - see more on this below.

2. The penny finally seems to have dropped with policy and technology (managers/pundits) – “the single biggest carbon sink we have is soil”. It might be a challenge to increase soil organic matter (SOM) – but in our view, had a fraction of the billions spent on technology to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and pump it underground been spent on figuring out how to increase SOM, we’d be there by now!

Soil Organic Matter - SOM

The important part of SOM is the fraction that does not biodegrade. Composts biodegrade relatively quickly. The fraction of SOM that is stable (non-biodegradable within 100 years) is referred to as the “humus fraction”. Compost is made up of +98% bits of organic matter that degrade to carbon dioxide over a few years leaving tiny amounts of humus (<2%). The actual level of SOM is a complex mix of environmental conditions so soils vary across the world. We can say it takes many years to rebuild long-lasting SOM by adding compost every year. (Hence the reticence from soil scientists to say there is a clear and quick path to increase SOM and hence use soil as the primary carbon sink).  

Here at SoilFixer, we keep highlighting the message: increasing SOM is not about adding loads compost OR biochar to soil. It is a much simpler and lower cost! Biochar (with a couple of other active ingredients and a tweak to the composting conditions) can be used to dramatically increase the colloidal humus content of “compost”. This can be done at any scale from the home garden, farm or huge council green waste windrow composting sites. Using a biochar-based compost activation agent – increases the colloidal humus content of compost from 2% to +20%. Subject to cost, we believe you can rebuild SOM within a couple of years.

Find out more about our SF60 Super Compost HERE.

To keep up to date, if you are not already ‘hooked in’, the following organisations can provide some helpful information.

Kiss The Ground - a new film on Soil looking at how it is essential as to our life on Earth.  Soil is a huge 'carbon sink'. There are some uplifting messages around how we can all take some simple steps that can help mitigate climate change by improving the health of the soil.  Please note: The trailer ("promo/intro") is free to view on YouTube. (I did not find this informative). The film (and crucial content) is only available on Netflix. (I have an account, but I believe I read you can opt-in for a one time view at £4.00 - some of which goes back to the improving soil campaign).

Sustainable Soil Alliance - a team of committed soil influencers focused on influencing policy

The Sustainable Soil Alliance has just launched www.soils.org, a brand new website that is home to a wealth of soil information and resources.

The Soil Association – best known for its Organic certification scheme, but the Soil Association is rooted in improving soil.

British Soil Association (profession, academic body)

Cranfield University (one biggest UK Soil research teams – has a fascinating set of maps on all UK soil…. 

RAU _recent Bledisloe lecture celebrating 175 anniversary recently took place. Helen Browning with Jonathan Dimbledy as chair - who knew Jonathan Dimbleby was former alumni)