"Let’s dig deeper into that last point on chemicals.
In a conventional farming system, when soil lacks biodiversity and has lower rates of nutrient cycling, it requires synthetic fertilizer. Synthetic fertilizer spurs the growth of weeds. To kill weeds, herbicides are sprayed. Herbicides contain chelates, which are compounds that bind metals – like magnesium, iron or zinc–making them unavailable to the plant. When plants cannot take up essential micronutrients, they become more prone to disease and unable to fight off pests, so fungicides are sprayed. And when plants are unfit to fight off pests, conventional agriculture practitioners spray pesticides – on crops meant for human consumption. Not to mention, pesticides also cause a decline in predator insects and pollinators, not just pests, which are necessary to produce crops… bringing this devastating system full-circle." (via https://www.seedlipdrinks.com/en-us/journal/is-soil-a-solution-to-climate-change/)
"Modern agricultural practices are leading to a loss of biodiversity and destroying our soils. Conventional agricultural practices involve:
Tilling the soil, which destroys that precious pore space for water infiltration,
Monoculture production, meaning growing a single crop [like wheat, corn or soybeans in the States] on land that’d natively grow hundreds of varying species at once,
Heavy chemical usage." (via https://www.seedlipdrinks.com/en-us/journal/is-soil-a-solution-to-climate-change/)
"We treat our soil like dirt.
Even though we rely on healthy soil for 95% of the food we eat, we’re losing this resource at a rapid rate as a result of thousands of years of poor farming practices, deforestation and erosion. Moreover, soil health has massive implications on planetary health and can play a significant and immediate role in mitigating climate change.
In a single handful of healthy soil, there are more organisms than humans on earth. Talk about more than meets the eye. The microorganisms that live in soil feed off of organic matter and, in turn, supply essential nutrients to plants. Soil with greater mineral content grows food with higher nutrient density. So, soil is quite literally the nutritional bank of the food we eat and, thus, our very existence. This grossly simplified version of the biological process is solely for the purpose of understanding how soil health directly affects our personal wellbeing." (via https://www.winemag.com/2020/01/14/12-best-non-alcoholic-spirits/)
