Soil: a living and complex system

On a temporal scale, we cannot visualize soil formation during our lifetimes, which makes it a non-renewable natural resource. It is the fundamental basis for food production and essential for the sustenance of animal and plant life. It houses biodiversity and biogeochemical cycles, guarantees the recycling of chemical and natural nutritional elements in the environment, serves as a filter and water storage, among numerous other benefits.

Despite supporting life on earth, however, in several places the soil is in inadequate conditions of use in terms of conservation. Therefore, practices and changes that encourage more sustainable use, aiming at its preservation, become more numerous and important every day. 

This global change in the way soil is treated can be observed in a 2019 global report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), on the state of the biodiversity that sustains our food systems. According to the survey, 80% of the 91 countries analyzed have been adopting actions favorable to biodiversity, such as integrated management, conservation agriculture and the use of sustainable solutions in cultivation. 

As an example, we can mention the adoption of management that is increasingly friendly to plants, animals and the soil, and that stimulates the expansion of the native microbiota. Thus, we see growth in investment in biotechnologies that naturally contribute to the development of cultivars, nourishing the soil in a balanced way, producing more and better. Using them, it will be possible to maximize natural resources, recover biodiversity and deliver quality food with high nutritional content to the population.

Adopting these solutions is the way to contribute to strengthening the basis of our food production chain. We need increasingly rich soil capable of supporting a growing global population. Let us not lose sight of the fact that, according to the FAO, around 33% of the world's soils are degraded, whether through direct impacts or not, and 20 billion tons are lost year after year due to erosion, making greater food productivity unfeasible.

In this way, its degradation leads to losses of nutritional elements, biodiversity and stored carbon, which results in the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Thus, soil health and fertility have a direct impact on the nutrient content of our food crops, which affects both the quantity and quality of food.

It is necessary to work in partnership with nature, through natural biotechnological solutions, to achieve balance in the environment. Therefore, increasing soil quality, favoring its natural activity, increasing carbon stocks and promoting the physical-chemical balance of the rhizosphere are fundamental strategies to favor the dynamics of the living and complex system called soil.