Soil is part of the Earth’s eco-system, which has successfully supported life on Earth for millions of years, while human civilisations, which have been around for a fraction of that time, have come and gone.

Soil, which is vital to life on earth, is a beautiful non-renewable resource that feeds everything on the planet. It is a living eco-system, an amazing mix of minerals, water, air, organic matter, as well as countless organisms – the decaying remains of once-living things. This microbiome provides for life on earth.

Soil microbes help regulate our emotions and immune response, play a key role in determining the nutrient content of our food. They decompose matter supporting the nutrient uptake of plants, while plants secrete compounds to feed nearby microbes. Microbes also enable plants to manufacture a series of chemicals called phytonutrients or antioxidants, these protect plants from pests and other stressors, and give fruits and vegetables their colour, smell and distinctive flavour. These same chemicals directly benefit us by stimulating our immune system, regulating our hormones and slowing the growth of human cancer cells.

Dr Zach Bush, a renowned US based physician, argues ‘the health of our soil microbiome is the single most potent factor determining how healthy, or unhealthy we are.’ For a long time it was assumed there were things in the soil that were trying to kill us, but recently scientists have realised that the living microbiome within the soil is there to protect us. That the soil is full of a diverse amount of microbes which our immune system has evolved to live with and learn from – research is suggesting that a healthy diet includes plant microbes.

This understanding – that soil is alive and we are both part of a living, collaborative eco-system – has led soil scientists to question the modern farming methods that employ the use of pesticides, herbicides and tilling, because all these approaches kill the microbiome in the soil. This approach, especially since the 1990’s with the introduction of glyphosate (an anti microbial herbicide), coincides with a huge rise in allergies, cancers and chronic diseases. Glyphosate is also water soluble, and so it travels from the soil into the water system.

The planet has a fantastic water cycle that contributes to the Earths eco-system. Water from the oceans and rivers and streams evaporates into the air from the heat of the sun. Once in the air it rises up and cools down creating droplets in clouds that form together, and when they get too big they fall to the Earth as raindrops due to gravity. There’s a study on the Cornucopia Institute website that showed 75% of air and rain studied had glyphosate in it. Zach Bush MD, who specialised in cancer research, has shown that an area in America where allergies, cancers and chronic disease has sky rocketed, coincides with the introduction of glyphosate use – run off from the area of land where glyphosate started to be used went into the Mississippi River, and it tributaries fed the water systems where a huge increase in allergies, cancers and chronic diseases were happening

Farming that relies on this modern technique of chemical use is killing off the life in our soil, and research shows that this is happening faster than it is being formed. This has led to a soil movement embedded in research that is looking at how to address this. The focus has been to find a way of farming that will bring balance back into the Earths eco-system, address climate challenges, human health, and have the capacity to feed everyone – we’ve seen so clearly during the COVID pandemic that people going without food has more to do with economic inequality than lack of food on the planet.

And so, welcome to Regenerative Agriculture, a system of farming that has the potential to achieve all these things, when it is applied through local, small-scale, job-rich initiatives. Research has shown that within one year of farming in this way, the soil became a living system one again.