Why is healthy soil so important?

At Good Sweet Earth, we believe healthy soil is the key to a healthier—well, everything. It’s the key to producing healthier food, keeping our watersheds clean, giving us more breathable air, and even reducing the greenhouse gasses responsible for climate change. Reducing the amount of chemicals in the soil around our homes exposes us to less carcinogens, which is healthier for our families. Healthy soil provides a home to billions and billions of lifeforms, which are threatened when soil is tainted with chemical fertilizers and herbicides. And when soil is healthy, it helps prevent erosion. Soil is life.

But what exactly does soil do?

According to the Soil Science of America, they describe the basics of soil like this:

Soil is an amazing substance. A complex mix of minerals, air, water, and countless microorganisms, soil forms at the surface of land and comes in many types. Put another way, soil is the thin, outermost layer of Earth’s crust, and like our own skin, we can’t live without soil.

Why?

• Soil performs many critical functions in almost any terrestrial ecosystem, whether a farm, forest, prairie, or city.
• Most of our food comes directly or indirectly from plants anchored in, and nourished by, soil.
• Soils modify the atmosphere by emitting and absorbing dust and gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor.
• Soils provide habitat for soil organisms--mostly microscopic creatures that account for most of the life on Earth.
• Much of the water we drink and use every day has been filtered and purified by soil.
• Soils process and recycle nutrients, including carbon, so that living things can use them over and over again.

• Soils serve as the foundation for the construction of roadbeds, dams, and buildings.

So this is why healthy soil is so important to us at Good Sweet Earth—it keeps our planet’s “skin” functioning as it was meant to function. Loading soil up with lab-created chemicals kills the life in it, which means things won’t grow, it means it will disappear into the wind, it means it won’t effectively filter the water we (and the creatures around us) rely on, and it means the air around us won’t be as clean and clear. 

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