A tenet of organic farming is that healthy soil leads to healthy plants. An article in Nature suggests that soil with high biodiversity also leads to improved human health.
Soil biodiversity has many effects on the environment beyond the edges of a field. Soils with a high abundance and diversity of soil life can suppress microorganisms which cause diseases in both plants and humans. For example, parasites and disease-causing bacteria, such as anthrax and Enterobacter, are less common in soils that have high levels of biodiversity. Exposure to soil microorganisms in childhood can also lead to lower rates of allergies.
Soil biodiversity helps to “provide clean air, water and food.” Water pollution is minimized because a healthy soil takes up and holds water, thereby reducing nutrient leaching and run-off (which can contaminate drinking water with nutrients, pathogens and/or agricultural chemicals). Soil life helps to bind soil particles together and make them more resistant to wind erosion, which can lead to dust storms.
The scientists conclude “It is time to recognize and manage soil biodiversity as an underutilized resource for achieving long-term sustainability goals related to global human health, not only for improving soils, food security, disease control, water and air quality, but because biodiversity in soils is connected to all life and provides a broader, fundamental ecological foundation for working with other disciplines to improve human health.”
Source: Diana H. Wall, Uffe N. Nielsen, Johan Six. Soil biodiversity and human health. Nature, Volume 528, Issue 7580, Pages 69–76, 2015 www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nature15744.pdf.
- Janet Wallace