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June 1997 Soil, the Foundation of Life By J. Patrick Madden

Healthy soil is the foundation of a healthy society. Just like a healthy person who rarely, if ever, needs medicine, healthy soil rarely if ever needs synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

Recent flooding in middle America reminds us of one of the social benefits of healthy soil. Dick and Sharon Thompson's 300 acre farm in Iowa is like a huge sponge. Rain and melting snow sinks into the absorbent soil. Millions of earthworms per acre perforate the soil so rain can quickly penetrate, and high soil organic matter from the Thompsons' careful management of manure and crop residue gives the soil outstanding moisture-holding capacity. The ditches between the Thompsons' fields and the road are virtually free of silt. In contrast, their neighbor's ditch must be dug out nearly every year. Insecticides kill most of the earthworms, and the soil surface is crusty. Rain gathers and forms gullies, washing the sickened soil away in a torrent of run-off from a heavy rain, filling the ditches with silt and swelling the already over-flowing creeks and rivers. As I watched the television news stories of record-high flood waters in the Midwest, I wondered how much less damage would have happened if every farm was managed by Dick and Sharon Thompson.

Healthy soil is the key to healthy crops and health-enhancing foods. A Japanese tomato grower using "Nature Farming" (as taught by philosopher Mokichi Okada) provides an outstanding illustration. Conventional tomato growers never plant tomatoes in the same soil two years in a row, because the accumulated disease pathogens destroy the roots of the second crop. Consequently, less profitable crops are rotated at least two to five years before tomatoes are re-introduced to the field. But this Japanese farmer was harvesting his 19th successive tomato crop, getting outstanding yields (100 tons per hectares) of beautiful and delicious Nature Farming tomatoes! How does he do it? After each tomato crop is finished, the farmer removes and composts the tomato vines, applies last year's finished compost to the soil and plants a core crop of sesbania, a fast-growing tropical legume. When the cover crop is about 5 or 6 feet tall, he flail-chops it and turns it under the soil surface as a "green manure." Later when he transplants the new tomato crop, he also plants an onion, leek or garlic plant next to each tomato. The roots of the onion plant, growing among the tomato roots, support a beneficial bacteria (pseudomonas cepcia) which repels and inhibits the root disease organisms such as Fusarium, thereby protecting the tomato plant and ensuring a healthy crop. The secret is keeping the soil healthy and inter-planting with another plant that provides the necessary habitat for the natural enemies of the pest, the pathogen.

For a long time scientists were puzzled by the observation that crops on organic farms in rain-fed areas are much less vulnerable to moisture and heat stress on hot, dry days in late summer, compared with the wilted fields of their conventional neighbors. Scientists now explain this seemingly mysterious phenomenon as the result of a symbiotic relationship with a beneficial fungus called VAM (vesticular armbuscular mychorrhyzac). VAM harmlessly infects the crop roots, then spreads far out into the soil, reaching moisture and nutrients far beyond the grasp of the roots. Scientists have found that the mass of the VAM can exceed that of the roots by a ratio of up to 100 times. In return for providing abundant water and nutrients, the VAM takes from the plant small amounts of sugar photosynthesized by the leaves. It's a splendid partnership. And it explains why organic farms and Nature Farms get crop yields far higher than agronomists predict according to the nutrients available in the soil and amounts added in compost or manure - without chemical fertilizers. Crop rotations and other practices used on organic and Nature Farms enhance VAM activity.

The soil is a living organism. With proper management the soil thrives, and breathes, and drinks in the falling rain, supports healthy crops. A Japanese physician, a Dr. Nitanai, whom I met recently in northern Japan, told me he encourages his patients to walk in the organic gardens surrounding his clinic, so they can "absorb the healing energies of the soil."

Healthy soil makes healthy crops, healthy people and healthy society.

J. Patrick Madden is President of World Sustainable Agriculture Association (WSAA). This article was reprinted with permission from the WSAA Newsletter. Contact: WSAA, 8554 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, CA 90069.

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