What Is Soil Health? The First Step Towards Sustainability
Josephine Killoren, MLWS 2021
Conventional agriculture has supported the human population but has led to the degradation of agroecosystems. The quality and the health of soil are rapidly deteriorating and becoming less fertile. Current agricultural practice poses threats to the environment causing degradation of water quality, land erosion, risking global food security and harming human health. These places of conventional agriculture are nearly abiotic, fewer and fewer organisms can survive in the soil due to excessive tillage and other inputs such as pesticides and herbicides. Policies, literature and Institutions have a lack of information on the role soil biodiversity plays in soil health and the health of the public. This literature review will discuss this knowledge gap and how soil health and its diversity is the first step towards more sustainable practice. A holistic approach to sustainability would be one through which the alternative practices must protect the environment, be economically viable and socially fair. Economic viability was found to be the main barrier to adopting sustainable practices. Conventional agriculture is organized to a single crude principle, yield, where it may seem like this system is thriving on paper, but it is failing on nearly every other measure, such as the environment and human health that it is trying to sustain. We must start adapting strategies that regenerate the soil and are sustainable and viable for farmers to perform. Soil health and soil biodiversity are defined with their benefits to the agroecosystem and public health. The challenges and benefits of conventional, organic and regenerative agriculture are outlined, including their economic and social viability in their applications to sustainable agriculture.
