Soil, the Stuff of Life
Water, blood, fat, DNA… these are just some of the things regularly referred to as “the stuff of life.” And it’s true — we couldn’t get along without them. But there’s another basic necessity that receives far less press: soil. Without healthy soil, it’s (almost) impossible for farmers to grow our food.
Dirt doesn’t cut it because dirt contains no life. Soil, though, is dirt plus organic matter and organisms. The names of these life forms — nematodes, protozoa, microarthropods — suggest their fantastical nature. The stuff of life. By contrast, dirt sounds boring… because, lacking life, it is.
“When people lose respect for the earth and consider the soil to be dirt, they treat it that way. They kill it. When they realize that what they’re walking on is sacred, they think twice about putting anything poisonous into it,” says Robbie Gass, soil specialist at ReFeed, a nutrient upcycle company based in Langley.
Humans have understood that soil is the stuff of life for thousands of years, long before microscopes and soil sample augers revealed the live microbiome in soil — and, of course, long before scientists “proved” that living things in the microbiome make available the nutrients required for soil fertility and therefore a reliable food system.
But long-ago farmers didn’t need the facts. Basic understanding of soil’s role and importance in agriculture was good enough. Our ancestors applied many effective techniques to support soil fertility.
A horrible history of soil
If even ancient humans understood how to care for the soil in ways that supported the microbiome to enable agriculture, how did things go wrong? According to soil researcher Rick Haney of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “We see that when there is a lot of tillage, no cover crops, a system of high intensity [chemical-dependent] farming, that the soil just doesn’t function properly. The biology is not doing much. It’s not performing as we need it to. We are essentially destroying the functionality of soil.”
This sad story of soil destruction starts, as so many sad stories do, with war. Although the main enemies of soil health — synthetic fertilizers, mechanized tillage and chemical pesticides — had been developed long before, their widespread implementation occurred for complex political, financial and logistical reasons during and after World War II.
The triumvirate comprised the “Green Revolution,” as it’s often called, and was responsible for more changes in a few decades than everything previously implemented in the preceding 13,000 years of agriculture. The goal was noble: to increase yields, and thus food supply, in poor regions. It worked. The Green Revolution exponentially increased yields and enabled the rise of the industrial scale agricultural and global food systems still dominant today. But it also kickstarted a downward spiral for what we now understand is the soil microbiome.
We enjoy the cheap, easily available nutrients these systems enable. Our soil decidedly does not; the Green Revolution is unsustainable.
But, as Rose Morrison, a retired soil science instructor from the University of the Fraser Valley, is quick to remind us, this is “not the collective fault of farmers. Some systems must change, and that’s a task for everyone. Future agriculture must be both productive and ecologically sound.”
Soil superheroes
There’s good news, though. Nowadays, farmers, including lots of soil superheroes right here in the Fraser Valley, recognize the microbiome’s crucial role. They work hard to support the life that transforms dirt into fertile soil.
This regenerative agriculture happens in many different ways, on many different farms. Overall, the aims encompass increased biodiversity, use of cover crops and crop rotations, reduced or zero tillage, reduced use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and, where possible, integration of livestock into the farming system.
Most of us have heard about how grazing livestock can improve soil health. Their manure adds nutrients and valuable organic matter to soil, often aided by little cuties such as dung beetles.
This is an important agricultural method. (And a great reason to support your local grass-fed ranch when you purchase meat.) But there’s much more to the soil story.
Biodynamic is beautiful
Take the example of the Forstbauer clan. Today, you can hardly visit a Lower Mainland farmers’ market without seeing a Forstbauer stall. But that growth took patience, effort and, most of all, microbiome rejuvenation on the Forstbauer farm.
When the family bought its 90-acre Chilliwack farm in 1988, Fraser Valley farming was a conventional affair, driven by chemicals and machines. And it showed: the Forstbauers couldn’t find a single worm in their soil. Luckily, Opa Forstbauer, a German relative, held a PhD in agriculture, and the clan facilitated soil rejuvenation on the farm using methods inspired by Opa. These involve cow horns, cow dung, decomposition and seriously butt-kicking fertilizer — all produced naturally.
Now the Forstbauer farm is crawling with worms — more than 54 million, in fact. The farm is flourishing and today the Forstbauers are famous for their sweet carrots, beets and blueberries.
The family has been growing organically since the 1970s. In fact, matriarch Mary, who passed away in 2015, was president of the Certified Organic Association of B.C. for many years. The organic approach eschews synthetic pesticides and fertilizers.
But the Forstbauers took it even further, driven by the philosophy of biodynamic farming. They’ve been using biodynamic techniques for more than two decades.
According to the Biodynamic Association, a biodynamic farm “is an integrated, whole, living organism. This organism is made up of many interdependent elements: fields, forests, plants, animals, soils, compost, people and the spirit of the place.” If this description sounds like the interconnectedness of the soil microbiome, that’s because it is.
“Biodynamic farmers and gardeners work to nurture and harmonize these elements, managing them in a holistic and dynamic way to support the health and vitality of the whole.”
And it works.
The biodynamic vineyard
Up in the Okanagan Valley, another family with roots in the original visionary phase of B.C. organic and biodynamic farming also continues to flourish — along with its grapes. The Cipes family has been regenerating the soil and stewarding the 17 hectares of land at its Summerhill winery since 1986. It’s “the only Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyard in British Columbia.” Demeter certification guarantees the products were grown biodynamically.
Both families also give back to their communities as educators. Mary Forstbauer spent decades volunteering with various organizations to help people from all walks of life understand and practice regenerative agriculture.
As active members of their Okanagan community, the Cipes family has also done similarly noble work for decades. Now its members seek to increase the scope of their outreach by building a “Culinary College for Humanity” on site at Summerhill Winery.
The vision, as described in an application to the City of Kelowna, is to offer food lovers and food professionals courses designed to facilitate support of “sustainable, localized food systems, including in subjects as varied as nose-to-tail preparation of animals, urban farming, food preservation, vegetable forward meal preparation, eliminating food waste and regenerative and organic agricultural systems.”
The next generation of soil regeneration
We can’t go back to school with the Cipes yet, but it’s easier than ever to find innovative farmers employing regenerative principles and practices.
In fact, just a five-minute drive from the Forstbauer farm sprawls Local Harvest, where Dan Oostenbrink runs an extensive organic farming operation with his wife, Helen, and their children.
Oostenbrink knows that “food cannot be healthier than the soil it is grown in. If the soil is impoverished the food produced is void of life-enriching microbes, minerals and nutrients. But if the soil is healthy, teeming with life, the food coaxed from the land nourishes and brings vitality to every aspect of our life.”
Besides transforming the Local Harvest land using regenerative agriculture, Oostenbrink also offers plenty of educational opportunities for home gardeners, thereby sowing the seeds of regenerative agriculture even farther afield. The goal? To help regular folks “achieve food self sufficient, build soil fertility and grow an abundance of nutrient dense food year-round.”
The Local Harvest sometimes partners with members of the Fraser Valley Permaculture Guild to offer workshops. Permaculture is another approach to regenerative agriculture — one that also supports soil health holistically.
The Permaculture Research Institute defines it as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems, which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people — providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.”
And it works.
The microbiome makers: ReFeed
As an easy first step, growers (meaning gardeners and farmers) keen to support soil health can make or buy “soil amendments” that work like microbiome first-aid kits.
The most familiar of these are compost, mulch and manure. But a quick online search shows how to make — and where to buy — other powerful natural amendments such as bokashi “tea,” biochar and vermicompost from worm farms.
Understandably, not everyone wants a worm farm at home, and not every farmer has capacity to run a worm farm parallel to other agricultural endeavours. That’s when it’s time to buy worm castings instead.
In the Lower Mainland, ReFeed Canada supplies worm castings, organic biochar and biosoil and more. The company’s innovative “circular farming” method reduces food waste by repurposing it to support soil health.
ReFeed supports people by donating fruit and veggies to food banks and farmers by providing livestock feed in the form of excess produce diverted from landfill. In return, farmers give manure back to ReFeed, which supports their extensive vermiculture operation. This cycle allows ReFeed to support the earth by producing soil amendments and microbiology that enhance soil microbiomes.
No soil, no food?
Regenerative farming takes significant time and labour — resources that, for many complex and largely systemic reasons, most farmers simply do not have. And yet, without the microbiome that creates soil, there is no life.
That means no life for us, because without healthy soil we will have no food.
Some scientists predict we have approximately 50 harvests left before our food system fails, in large part due to soil destruction in the forms of degradation, exhaustion, erosion and more.
If that happens, we’ll be completely reliant on technologies that enable food production without soil, such as cellular agriculture and vertical farming. These are excellent, innovative methods that can ease pressure on resources such as agricultural land, water and soil.
But, as your mother always told you, it’s folly to put all your eggs in one basket. Indeed, this is one of the key lessons the industrial, global food system has taught us.
According to Rose Morrison, to ensure that our food system can support us, “soil conservation and regenerative practices will increase. The e is room and need for vertical systems that do not extract natural soil, but provide accessibly priced fresh vegetables for urban populations. The use of precision agriculture and robotics will expand. We need to embrace and adopt what is best within our specific locations, cultures, climate and soils.”
That’s why it makes sense to support the earth, soil health and the farmers who support it right now.
Because it works.
