the biggest loser of this fight might be our environment. you're watching g.w. news next is the soil in which we grow our food under threat our documentary the last harvest as the answers for you and terry martin thanks for joining us. shifting powers the old order is history the world is real uniting itself and the media's role is keep the topic in focus of the global media forum 29 change today one out of 2 people is online who are we following whom do we trust to beijing and shape the future at the georgia dome a global media forum 2019. soil

is a healthy living vibrant ecosystem minute self it cycles nutrients it holds water and it sustains life all life began and then with the soil houdini. was promoted monoculture in the big big way and the monoculture soaring is just not working. where you want us to we need our land to be but i have a fertilising 911 count in the long run time is ok. i'm going to say it's pretty clear way facing climate change so it's even more important to the future that we keep our soils healthy marks through to. go somewhere although we eat twice as many vegetables as we do. in the 1970 s.

we've taken less and less minerals and trace elements that are down here. really really keeping fruit at a very very low price artificially you know products. by deploying very simplistic agricultural systems we have to safeguard them protect with some nasty chemicals. the world's arable land is the foundation of civilisation it gives us almost everything that we eat but of our own natural resources it attracts the least attention and it's being destroyed faster than it's reformed. $10000000.00

hectares of land a year or 30 football pitches every minute are depleted and taken out of production . you are you are putting yourself and soil as anything about disposable. surface wrong takes a long long time to become arable land area headed with the wrong cast to crumble it can take thousands of years before you can grow crops in it they've got to sort of soar you know they've been with the smoke on the glacier. almost goodell open only if we share the planet's arable land to each person look at about 2000 square metres you're looking at the world's population is growing and we're rapidly destroying the soil so that figure one to apply in the long run through. saudis are most important as a measure of the world he content 80 percent of the by ourselves there were around for his readers or valuing system if there were around any who don't take care of

a team he would be died and then the quality of the production draw in and then we all seek because so you are seek. the soil is a living system and if unstable will throw everything else out of balance including us human beings. we probably don't realize just how important it is or how much of the land on our planet desirable the entire population of the world is to be fed from an area smaller than russia that's all there is. sort is the famous layer on the earth in which the trance and the life can thrive so it's a very very shadowy area some places maybe a meter burning some of the places it's only a few centimeters depth so it's

a very thin layer. kind of occupies the space between rock and life half of soil is broken down pieces of mineral and half of it is decomposing organic matter that was living and so it's kind of that interface. anything that we would have saw might look pretty sterile but you just can't see the things and it's cod that in each square meter they are more bacteria than people on earth you have to use them yet bacteria and it's many where you everything that comes into contact with the soil like leaves and toxins chemicals that shouldn't be there is processed by the organisms that live in the soil tells you how all don't want any special things you can. soil. once thought by many to be dead cold and black. but a large portion of all living creatures are believed to inhabit this microcosm. the

length of fun guy my ceiling is virtually endless an ecosystem that breaks down organic matter whether it's minerals purifies water and services the entire biosphere. doesn't borjomi idea and all that it's primarily the bacteria that react with any new material so the exit millions of bacteria that reproduce if they get too much food. and wine are. all gone the skin then they're funky that break down nutrients so that they're in the perfect condition to be absorbed by plants along with soil moisture so soon gave the markets. you know it's all about life and death because you need that that cycle and that's what the soil food web is. the plants in the soil need one another they've developed and

perfected a mutual balance during the course of evolution that have become a self-sufficient entity. if you look at how a healthy soil ecosystem functions it's all about photosynthesis how much sunlight can i capture with living plants those living plants then through photosynthesis pumped carbon into the soil and as they do that that carbon then in the soil feeds all that soil life and allows that soil to produce much much more. photosynthesis is a miracle of nature that extracts carbon and in conjunction with the degradation of organic matter creates humus the soil layer that is a prerequisite for all food production it's in the humus that we find most of the nutrients but it's also the humus the disappears in modern farming diversity and

the number of organisms decrease and the self-sufficient entity falls apart. it feels awkward to regard the plough until it just threats since they traditionally symbolize fertility and good times but contemporary food production has become so industrialized that it causes damage to soil layers deeper down as well. pox name is so at compaction is an increasing problem become more and more specialized which calls for more rationalize ation measures the machinery gets larger and heavier cultivation seasons become longer so we tell the land won its went back but he's factors all costs oil compaction the yield gradually decreases as the soil is deprived of and to breathe or. this impacts

the layers below plowing down which become almost like cement. it creates a kind of lid that won't let through any rainfall and that results in flooding it also prevents water from being filtered and groundwater reserves from being replenished. industrial monocultural food production creates problems. which promoted monoculture in the big big way and then monoculture on saw it is just not working in. in europe you have soldiers to have fallen through the last 30 years never seen another crop than the wheat or maize and when you look at these sort of as just horrible what we find you know it's north worms no doubt if hardly any pirates according to the to win this on programs and you have

a farmer that's telling you that he's in every year he's using more fitted eyes or any dealings on any better. our food supply chain rests on streamlined farming. one of the conditions for this is mono cultivation the same annual crops over large areas there's no variation in the natural interaction between plants and soil has been done away with. the soil decays one 3rd of all soil in europe is said to be under stress. in some parts of the usa california among others plantations and groundwater systems are collapsing the cycle has been thrown off balance.

this is the end of huge coal to beat it there it's taken globally a 3rd of all wheat is grown on the american prairie but there are farmers who work differently recognise the trends and work question industrial farming. modern agriculture to me unfortunately has become one that's driven by money. i often look at most producers merrily as puppets you know they're doing what they're told to do plant this crop use this fertilizer use this chemical girl this model called sure to me that's not what agriculture should be agriculture should be about producing healthy food in a way that actually regenerates the soil but it's just up that way to. just look at this oil how cap it is you know i'm a big guy but. that hard that is.

but look at the crust on the soil look at the plating it and if you smell and you can smell the bacteria how rancid it is now this operation same family for 50 years but the only 2 crops they have grown is flax unsparingly monocultures very little diversity the other thing you notice obviously there was no earthworms there was no life you see no insects out there. this crap isn't getting very many nutrients at all from the soil the soil is more last just a medium to hold the plant up for their operation they farm approximately 40000 cropland acres. high use of synthetic herbicides past the sides fun just. look at the right mass. the rats are moving horizontally they're

not move and vertically. look at the ball fence and you can just see the ball dance the other soil how hard it is that's from synthetic fertilizers. and they're all absolutely yes the earth lands are some of the most important in goodness and in the soil and awesomely and the end of it is there are many different species and sizes but they do the same thing all along that i had they transform the organic material don't get as they dig tunnels in the soil. and also in these tunnels shall untruths have space to grow and rain can get in. and pull it creates a poorest and fine mesh of small cavities in the ground with the water can easily trickle down like reach the ground will get purified and not run off the surface carrying with the topsoil and causing erosion that was done in the mass in the sun

all children me and i can show. monoculture effects all soil organisms especially earthworms who are immensely important to the fertility and structure of the soil and the humus they transport minerals and nutrients from deep down to the surface. and healthy. this means tons of earthworms and countless miles of their tunnels unfortunately they're in decline. without the earthworm the humus and the ecosystem lose their most brilliant engineer. earthworms do not like synthetic fertilizers they do not like fast decides they do not like fungicide they do not like herbicides they do not like monocultures they

do not like bare soil they need proper as it is they need a healthy home they need soil aggregation. and some even in agriculture that doesn't use counting the amount of but only chemical fertilizers the earth limbs lack of food and thinking that they have nothing to eat they need organic material to live without it they die or go somewhere else after the tombstones. but how does an earthworm move across these vast fields on the surface of the soul who is swept clean of all plant debris you are going to matter. ordinary manure is no longer a given the only thing that suggestive of the days of so sufficient farming when nutrients were circulated by the don't flies enjoying what little cow dung is still

around. the lack of organic matter not only affects earthworms and other soil living creatures but also the all important exchange of nutrients between plants and fungus. in debate over their versatility so some all of the elements are very important. you have a lot of fungus later we call recall is which are very very important because they are the elements that make the link between the new treatments and all the elements you have in this earth and with the roots of the vineyard so if you don't have this huge family of fungus you now have any communication between the sorry

and the plants so they really are no communication. from but are funky have my syria to absorb nutrients like phosphorus plants have photosynthesis big bang can't just sunlight and carbon dioxide you see on their own they can't absorb enough nutrients from the ground and also the fungus in the plant swap with each other so beetle might take them about. 90 percent of all plants interact with fung going to guarantee the absorption of vital minerals and other nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus a crucial ecosystem service that is under threat from chemical farming. home. the problem with my cries is that like any from guy they're all sensitive to fungus sites and you know the culture we use a lot of funny cide especially when we are in with a country and once the plants loses this symbiotic association with the microbes

that it loses also its ability to take a phosphorous in the soil. the. only good it's a small beneficiary if the mike arise they disappear from the soil it takes a long time for them to return they create and recall denies ation starts from the edges of the field. so if. we have large fields it's an even slower process you know some of the process. if this natural exchange is lost we risk becoming dependent on chemical fertilizers particularly phosphorous which is only mined in a few places in the world. we compensate for the lack of natural nutrients with chemistry elements like nitrogen and phosphorous and potassium are manufactured using energy intensive methods. fertility has diminished

but crops still grow are we covering the depletion of our soil with chemical fertilizers. damn. so can the chemical fertilizers mean you don't need animals to funnel stands and you can get big harvests even in soils that lack what they need to deliver these harvests that's the theory of the heart. riki of a closed chemical fertilisers unlike sugar it's a lot of energy easily accessible but short lived that's being it you can't run a marathon on sugar alone. soils are meant to be there forever that's why we can't fertilize them with sugar i think that you're slow or you'll die. and right now we will put on you know 100 kilos of nitrogen and between 40 and 60 of those kilos go somewhere else in the environment they're not taken up by the crop.

monoculture and chemical fertilizers constitute a threat the soil becomes passive and the nutrients end up in oceans lakes and other waterways. dangerous compounds and phosphorous based proto life has become part of the food we eat. here we're going to forswear us to get one problem with phosphorus fast and i says is that they often contain cadmium. removing it is costly. keeping it means lots of cadmium in our food in the future many problems are accumulating in modern agriculture but i would doubt it will because. much of what we end up using agro chemicals for insecticides fungus sites things like this is to compensate for the lack of diversity diversity in the natural

system is what prevents diseases from taking down all of the plants. they're it's what prevents one insect from just exploding because there's habitats for predators living in other plants and so by by deploying very simplistic agricultural systems we have to safeguard that protect them with some nasty chemicals.

her. her. and production agriculture today. producers are focused on how do i kill at best kill a pest. for every insect species that's the past there are 1700 that are beneficial so here we are in production agriculture trying to kill our one pass when we should be providing a home for the 1700 that it is that makes the most sense that makes no sense what we're doing in agriculture.

what happened you find everything in diversity but in just over half a century agriculture has become industrialized and reliant on finally agreed. sources the soil has become a cheap means of production for farmers and wine producers dead soil is a reality. when i started my winery 10 years ago it had been rented to a thumber who was not working naturally at all and i realized. that they started to work on where almost. there was no energy there were very superficial and there was no life no biodiversity nothing was going on.

there maybe 1010 percent of the songs are will look after and then the majority of the soldiers we see anyway when we do so studies. working well. and when you use pesticides then is more difficult for the plan to get a good healthy nutrition because there microbial communities completely disorganized and then you get into a vicious cycle. is it our way of life that has silenced the law. by wanting the cheapest possible products fruit and vegetables all year round and we threatening the land and thereby the prospects of future farming. have we been promoting large scale farming

and land consumption instead of land management. from the farming that we are having today especially now corresponding is moving to be crimes like properties that are managed by the competence they designed a brother for the north of us this is making that we are changing the fertilization in this system for the action and this is resulting in out funds that have not sustainable. we are are using a lot of chemicals not only to make up for the lies or source of pesticides on every site they result right now is that we have more of those young less healthy. on these large scale orange plantations the topsoil isn't seen as a living ecosystem but as

a cheap means of production this will come back to bite them in 20 years time the thin soil cover could be gone. but soil is disappearing in countries further north to rich and black the bare soil is exposed to the elements wherever you look the expenditure exceeds the income. we're in the process of depleting our soil account of all capital. what can you say it's pretty clear with facing climate change we're likely to get more severe weather so it's even more important to the future that we keep our soils healthy and get info from the even goldmark's through to. historian although much of the soil we have on earth is vulnerable to erosion water or wind erosion erosion has been identified as

a very serious threat to our soils because the top won't move more what i would work. better for the absolute north things the extent of erosion is increasing or is especially where all the nutrients are in the finest particles to party with their net instead. humus and nutrients disappear in the rain in the wind what has taken thousands of years to create is a road away in the blink of an eye what remains is soil that has lost its self-sufficiency its ability to produce its very life and that will hurt us. among all know when you grow the frog it can never contain more nutrients than the soil contains. the plants can retain carbon via carbon dioxide through photosynthesis but they can't produce anything

else it's up to the soil so if the soil is depleted of mutual and we get across that's depleted of nutrients. we're not getting the micronutrient content that requires us to stay well and the consequences are that you're seeing more and more chronic disease conditions being presented earlier and earlier and earlier over a generational change. where we're force feeding vast sways mainly with them p.k. fertilizes in a manner that creates rapid growth but doesn't necessarily the plant itself to be as i say my commute tree and so you have a massive piece of properly over a carrot or potato it doesn't necessarily mean that the nutrient content is as then as it would be in the past.

my guess is that. the calcium levels and zinc levels haven't increased but the carbohydrate levels have. that's how crops eels have increased. that although we eat twice as many vegetables as we did in the 1970 s. we take in less and less minerals and trace elements down. selectively bred fast growing crops to shallow roots and poor nutritional about. if moreover the soil is lifeless and incapable of delivering minerals and trace elements does it mean that contemporary food production is failing to carry out its most important task delivering a healthy and diverse food. cup but boredom only does the

diversity both in a agriculture and in our food when we switched to modern wheat varieties. and the mineral levels have also decreased in these we. means so we get less micronutrients from the modern weeks than we did from the old varieties. and i was a pastor and got them. thanks for telling what were in syria we have put too much emphasis on high yield crops for him there were 50 years ago we had 10 tons of straw to 4 tons of grain it all today we have 10 tons of grain to 4 tons of straw but we need to eat twice as much flour to get the same amount of nutrients for someone magnetics and. more carbohydrates and fewer micronutrients the vitamins and minerals that govern all the functions of our cells and which in small quantities are essential to us. more

sugar less nourishment. is it possible we're eating more because our bodies suffer from deficiencies. always in more as a result of this nutrient content. i think we are i think that occur in the body strive towards wanting something nourishing something that requires. and that is not sated search in other words you can be overfed. mound nourished and that's one of the biggest problems that we've got. in terms of great . health related problems within our society. just about if it is the biggest lifestyle related cause of chronic illnesses today . and we need to focus on micro malnutrition.

since micronutrients are part of so many functions in the cells it's difficult to gauge what the deficiency results and what is it could be any illness. also have. we compensate for cereals in rice with low nutritional value. when they refined and polished they lose even more of their minerals and micronutrients. so we add stuff like i think. in quantities that might not be justified physiologically. only interesting to the most processed baby food storage and formula isn't reached with ion. of the ion we enrich the food with we absorb only about 2 percent. the rest goes into the large intestine. and the ion changes the intestinal flora.

today we link many illnesses in the western altered intestinal flora like allergies gluten intolerance and type one diabetes in children on. my niche. angels and deficiencies create imbalances the resultant so called hidden hunger and chronic conditions. could be reduced nutritional value without food be a fundamental cause. a recess bring from deficiency disease. how did it come to this. shouldn't our food contain everything we need. to try to see is that actually there in food manufacturing fraternity could create more could nutrient fruits for the populace is just a game it's an aspect of cheap goods and it's not been

a priority for them to create that type of food. mass farming doesn't help to call the tree in any sense whatsoever we're not helping the environment we're only really keeping food out of very very low price on the fish and in the farms. where has this cheap food let us you know united states spends more on health care than any other developed country in the world yet last time i checked were the 42nd althea's country. or 1st in 80 to 80 h.t. cancers parkinson's alzheimer's osteoporosis and the list goes on and on. death row for damages means for the cooling down one problem with today's food production. is that we equate agriculture with any other business.

food products with any other products. and found this has resulted in animals being treated as animal units are. tough here and we've lost. touch with why we fall middle earth sounds long on far far off that you know everything has been streamlined to be about money only i. actually say yes can't borrow we've lost all sense of thoughtfulness care respect. humility. respect and you can see. with this production intensive market driven by economic growth our society is rapidly becoming urbanized and that

uses of land fertile living topsoil is trapped beneath the shopping centers concrete infrastructure and soil sealed surfaces this vital resource is tarred over. the climate could quickly change our way of life so we need the arable land to store the carbon that's creating the changes to the world's weather systems topsoil have a function in climate regulation that we can utilize and maybe at the same time get ourselves more crops. their fears for sure got us all horror comic from some experts saying that if we increase the organic matter in all songs by 2 percent that we could get rid of all greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. soft or that's how big the impact of what we grow is on the climate

here more. you could say that more fertile soil also results in a better climate before. we could fix the greatest challenge of our time global warming simply by growing more in our fields would only affect the not. so with nature as our model we grow more and reduce climate change a shift towards protective crops low tillage cultivation more diversity and quality instead of quantity. annual monoculture and chemical dependency will hopefully soon be a thing of the past there are opportunities for regeneration and climate smart cultivation . sustainable agriculture is possible. it's in the sesame. one solution can be found in perennial crops which reduced tops will

use in a kinder to let it be perennial foodstuffs are part of our future. well this is intermediate wheat grass which produces the grain kerns and it is a relative of wheat it's kind of a cousin of wheat. and it looks like wheat but it has a very important difference we eat is an annual that you need to replant every year and has relatively shallow roots kerns has very deep roots and is a perennial so it really grows year after year after year protects the soil builds soil or ghana matter takes up nutrients very efficiently and provides a lot of carbon or soil or solar gammick matter for organisms in the soil to eat. by moving the ecosystem the agro ecosystem into

a perennial state we think we will not only conserve the saul resource but make agriculture a very very sustainable. one condition for sustainable food production is biological diversity right no and in the future. could species which ecosystems be the life insurance of humanity. in the legal systems even in healthy. a buffer in times of stress and the foot capacity on the hand for example climate change. family and. the marine always come on biological

diversity is of enormous importance of course i would argue that it is an insurance for the future and. for the whole with a large biodiversity we know that if something changes in the future and something well there are always some groups and organisms that are ready to take over unfortunate head to keep the system functioning. so to stay in the tree or. something didn't have a set of campus things with this stuff and then the soils ecosystem could care less for the n.t. and so which would mean that we could no longer grow crops and that's all and i think you can always like.

not being able to grow things what a horrible thought. and every day we're cutting more of our lifelines. but traditional locally sourced food is an option small scale production and high nutritional value instead of the cheapest possible support to farmers and growers that manage their land instead of wasteful large scale production our choices at the supermarket are crucial for the arable land band for our chances of growing anything at all in the future. the worst case scenario for soil would be that. producers and consumers don't realize that that's where the nutrients come from that's the stay in life all life all life began and ends with the soil.

this is about the immediate future possibly just one generation away. when we're used up the very thin layer of topsoil that we have at our disposal. we have to do away with the notion that the soil the ecosystem and nature are there to be exploited rather than interacted with if we're to have any kind of future at all. without life no soil. and with no soil. if people don't speak about literature as a speak about over and it's not a hermit just don't spin your humanity and signature rain just repeating you know we beyond we've been young trees in nature such as heat if we destroy nature we destroy bess i mean it's ridiculous to suggest humanity engine it you know or all together so i tell you i mean you many t. because he kills an extra. people missed them just on that.

tell him to. reduce. reuse. recycle. social projects to the world they are giving away. and my cousin.

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