“Just as lifestyle influences a
person’s life expectancy within the constraints of the human life span, the way
societies treat their soil influences their longevity,” David R. Montgomery
writes in Dirt: The Erosion of
Civilizations. We cannot be
fit without food and we cannot have food without soil, so Montgomery’s
fascinating investigation of our relationship with the dirt in which we grow
our food provides a bigger context for how we choose to live our lives.
Historically, humans have had some
pretty unfortunate effects on the planet.
Erosion of topsoil, because it is usually a gradual process, tends to go
unnoticed until there is a drastic event like the Dust Bowl. However, many of our farming processes
encourage erosion at a rate faster than soil can be replenished.
There is good news. Research suggests that there are many
avenues available to reverse the erosion trend and maintain the crucial and
mostly invisible resource under our feet.
Many are already dear to the heart of environmentally minded folks: local culture, organic farming, cover
crops, fallowing, small, worker-owned farms. Others involve shifting process from plowing to discing. Still others require the kind of
long-term thinking that comes hard when there are mouths to feed right now.
In any case, the book was
interesting, often wryly funny, and informative. All of us who like to eat could profit from this reading
experience.
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