Dr. Ollie on Stardust & Soil

Life on spaceship earth is wondrous. There are some very specific and very special things which make the natural world function on this third rock from the sun. These fundamental laws of nature are as old as the planet itself, and far older than our short civilization, which is a mere 10,000 years old.

We are all stardust – literally. Joni Mitchell sang so in her song Woodstock, and, it turns out, she was right. Every element on earth, except for the lightest, was created in the centre of some massive star. Heavy elements are formed in the supernova explosions that occur when a star dies. These elements mix with other matter and form new stars, some with planets such as our own planet earth. So “the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones were all forged in such stars. We are made of stardust.” according to physicist Dr. Edward Zganjar. And Joni Mitchell.

Most living things are mostly made of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, with other elements occurring in smaller proportions. There are anomalies – we are carbon based and yet only 0.0355% of the atmosphere is carbon. 78% of this atmosphere is in fact nitrogen, yet plants have not evolved to use it. Life depends upon the elements on the planet functioning in a balanced way – it really is as simple as that. And as matter functions in a closed system (ie it all has to go somewhere) nutrients (the term used in agriculture for elements) need to be recycled in a harmonious process.

Impact of Food Production

However, industrial society, essentially the last 200 years of western civilization, has thrown some of these balances out of kilter. We don't circulate our nutrients in a way that is be beneficial; so instead, we have issues with waste management and pollution rather than the constructive use of available fertility. Take food production: industrial agri-food production goes through what is called the Haber-Bosch process to harness atmospheric nitrogen and make it available as a synthetic fertilizer for farming. This process involves making a “fertility furnace” of 500 degrees Centigrade, using enormous amounts of fossil fuels. This, and its transportation and storage, inevitably contributes to climate change, whilst also using up eons of stored up carbon in the process.

Industrial farming depletes soil rather than builds soil quality, because it has these synthetic fertilizers. We need a tiny layer of soil on the top of the earth's crust for our food system to work, yet modern industrial farming methods shrink the size of the topsoil available to humanity, from which food production depends.

Organic farming methods, however, are more in kilter with the natural cycles of the planet. Because organic farmers cannot use synthetic fertilizer, due to the environmental damage it causes, they use natural methods and processes to create fertility. Clover is one of the few plants that can actually harness all that atmospheric nitrogen naturally – so organic farmers use that plant, along with rotating the farming practices from field to field each year, instead of synthetic fertilizer.

Magic Soil

Biodiversity under the ground is as important as that over the ground – indeed they depend upon each other. A teaspoon of soil generally contains between 100 million and 1 billion bacteria – vital to the soil's functioning. They are accompanied by the smallest virus, algae, fungi and protozoa, higher up by, more complex nematodes and micro-arthropods, and then the visible - earthworms, insects, small vertebrates and plants. Simply put, these all interact with each other and carry out vital functions. Microbes decompose matter, fix nitrogen and make minerals available to plants; they also store and recycle nutrients, make soil more porous, build humus, increase nutrient retention, prey on crop pests and are then themselves consumed. This sort of process all leads up the food chain, to the point that insects are eaten by birds.

So because they cannot use synthetic fertilizers, organic farmers encourage these natural soil building processes, as this also leads to healthy grass, healthy crops and healthy animals. Scientific studies back up this notion that organic farming is good for soil quality. Microbes are more abundant, nutrients become more available to plants and the soil becomes stronger. So the soil can better resist problems like physical/structural damage, erosion and compaction. What this means is that organic farms function better in both drought and flood situations. In fact, a study of flooding in Germany recently recommended using organic farms as buffer zones due to the improved soil structure they offer.

An Organic Future

With the erratic effects of climate change coming and intensifying as the years roll by, this ability to function in extreme weather will become more and more important. It will especially be more important in the places where food is, in an immediate way, a matter of life and death. All of this means that organic farms are resilient, or future-proofed. We take for granted so much of modernity and its affectations. And yet, so much of this is transient and based on the rapid and unsustainable use of fossil fuels. When we run out of these, which we will, we will have to farm organically – as we have done for 9,800 of our 10,000 years as a settled civilization.

So here on spaceship earth, organic food is one way for the stardust to shine.