It’s easy to underestimate the importance of soil health. It’s not a glamorous subject, it doesn’t make a splash on the front page of newspapers and it doesn’t trend on Twitter. But it is groundbreaking. In fact, many scientists believe that the key to saving our planet and our very existence is in the ground beneath our feet.
Why Is Soil Health Important?
In basic terms:
- Healthy soil means healthy plants, tress and crops
- Healthy plants grow bigger and stronger
- Bigger and stronger plants and trees capture more carbon
- More carbon is removed from the atmosphere and safely stored in roots in the soil
- The balance of gases on earth is more balanced and the planet can begin to heal
The United Nations have been advocates of soil health for decades and have even dedicated a day to mark its importance: World Soil Day is 5thDecember every year. The aim of World Soil Day is to raise awareness of soil health and to create positive change. Each year has its own theme, in 2020 this is “keep soil alive, protect soil biodiversity.”
What Can I Do?
There are many practical ways we can help to support World Soil Day, both at home and in our businesses. These include:
- Planting more: trees, flowers, crops – every little helps. Wild flower patches are great for encouraging soil biodiversity and natural self-managing eco-systems
- Swap artificial fertiliser for biofertiliser which is rich in natural nutrients, boosts soil health and produces better crops – we produce biofertiliser as part of our food waste recycling process and our sister company FGS Organics is a specialist in applying this directly onto your soil
- Reduce, reuse, recycle as much as possible. There is very little that cannot be repurposed or recycled – including food waste that can be turned into green energy and biofertiliser at our VeriGreen AD plants
- Natural farming where biofertiliser is used within healthy ecosystems that naturally manage crops are becoming increasingly popular and could be worth considering
Join us and the UN in supporting World Soil Day – share your positive contributions to global soil health on social media using the #worldsoilday hashtag.
