Healthy soils make for healthy humans

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This article was published 07/12/2024 (637 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s hard to miss the annual release of Canada’s Food Price Report, thanks to all the headlines telling us how much our grocery bills will rise next year.

The collaboration between researchers at four Canadian universities benchmarks food costs and the factors influencing them. In case you missed it, the annual cost of food is forecast to rise by three to five per cent in 2025. The biggest increases will be for meat, vegetables and meals while dining out.

Food inflation is backing off from the double-digit increases we saw post-COVID-19 pandemic, although that is of little comfort to households that suffer from food insecurity.

The report also warned of uncertainty in the face of multiple influences, including escalating global conflicts and the decision by U.S. voters to re-elect Donald Trump, who is less predictable than the weather under climate change.

There was another event this week that directly correlates with the cost of nutrition but which generally garners little attention, at least not in the constant streaming of up-to-the-minute news bytes.

Granted, World Soil Day, celebrated every year on Dec. 5, doesn’t come across as the stuff of breaking news. However, the connection between the state of soils and human health is profound, albeit poorly understood, and one we can’t afford to ignore.

The list of human foods that don’t start in the dirt is mighty short. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says soil is at the root of 95 per cent of the food supply.

Humans collectively haven’t been doing such a great job looking after it, with 33 per cent of global soils classified as degraded.

Notably, Prairie farmers are doing a better job of protecting their soil from erosion and loss of organic matter than peers in most parts of the world, thanks to the widespread adoption of reduced-tillage systems that leave the soil undisturbed, allowing its microbiological communities to thrive.

Researchers estimate there are more living organisms in a tablespoon of soil than there are people on Earth. They all contribute in some fashion to the health of that soil.

Soil supplies 15 of the 18 naturally occurring chemical elements essential to plant growth. The other three — carbon, hydrogen and oxygen — are taken up by plants from the atmosphere during the photosynthesis process.

So, what does this mini-science lesson have to do with the price of your pork chops (as a former city editor frequently asked me)?

Innovation in pursuit of feeding the world has largely been focused on increasing yields and production. Farmers, after all, get paid for how much they produce. But there is growing awareness that has come at the expense of nutrition.

Not only has the diversity of the human diet narrowed to where 12 crops now account for 75 per cent of global food production, but the nutrient value of the foods we are eating has declined. A widely cited USDA study found the nutritional value of common vegetables had declined significantly over 50 years: calcium by 16 per cent, iron by 15 per cent, phosphorus by nine per cent, riboflavin by 38 per cent and vitamin C by 15 per cent.

It helps explain why more people are suffering from obesity and malnutrition at the same time.

Productivity and increased yield still matter as the world’s demand for food continues to grow. However, nutritional density has become a critical third dimension in the food security challenge, next to availability and affordability.

Yet researchers are only beginning to understand, let alone quantify and define what constitutes “healthy” soil, and how that correlates with healthy crops and more nutritious foods.

“The connection of soil with nutrient deficiencies in crops, food and humans is generally not so conspicuous,” the FAO says in the 2022 report “Soils for Nutrition: State of the Art.” But they know it exists.

“If soils are not healthy, their ability to produce healthy and nutritious food is reduced or lost.”

Without healthy soils, the cost of our food system is much higher than the price we pay at the grocery store.

Laura Rance is executive editor, production content lead for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com