Soil: The Foundation of Agriculture (2024)

FAQs

What is soil the foundation of? ›

Throughout human history, our relationship with the soil has affected our ability to cultivate crops and influenced the success of civilizations. This relationship between humans, the earth, and food sources affirms soil as the foundation of agriculture.

Soil helps control where rain, snowmelt, and irrigation water goes. Water flows over the land or into and through the soil. The diversity and productivity of living things depends on soil.

Without soil, there's no food. Land plants cannot move to find better conditions, they rely fully on the soil to sustain growth, development and reproduction. Soil is often treated as an inert material, a foundation into which roots can grow and expand.

The type of soil greatly affects the stability of construction projects. Sandy and loam soils are excellent for building foundations due to their water management and stability. Clay and peat soils are not ideal due to their expansiveness and high water retention, respectively.

Soil carries out a range of functions and services without which human life would not be possible. It provides an environment for plants (including food crops and timber wood) to grow in, by anchoring roots and storing nutrients. It filters and cleans our water and helps prevent natural hazards such as flooding.

Loam is the best soil type for construction due to its ideal combination of silt, sand, and clay. It combines the best of all their qualities into the ideal balance for supporting a foundation.

Loam: Loam is an ideal garden soil for many types of plants. It's crumbly, full of organic matter, retains moisture, and drains well. For most plants, this is "healthy" garden soil.

Agriculture impacts society in many ways, including: supporting livelihoods through food, habitat, and jobs; providing raw materials for food and other products; and building strong economies through trade.

Found in Ukraine, parts of Russia and the USA, mollisols are some of the world's most fertile soil. This type of soil includes black soils with high organic content. Vertisols – 2.5% of the world's ice-free land.

Soil helps produce our food and unearth life-saving medicines and vaccines. Soil also filters and purifies our water, reduces flooding, regulates the atmosphere and plays a crucial role in driving the carbon and nitrogen cycles. It is also key to tackling climate change as it captures and stores vast amounts of carbon.

What is healthy soil the foundation of? ›

Healthy soil is the foundation for a productive garden. It is a living natural resource that is teaming with billions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes. Together these elements create an ecosystem that sustains plants, animals and humans.

The environmental conditions that drive soil formation are physical, chemical and biological processes that are commonly known as the five soil forming factors: climate, organisms (flora and fauna, including human activity), relief or terrain, parent material and time.

The favourable soil for farming is loamy soil. It has an equal amount of clay, sand, and silt. They are highly productive for the growth of crops.

The main function provided by a fertile soil is the provision of food, which is very important considering FAO's Zero hunger objective. A fertile soil also provides essential nutrients for plant growth, to produce healthy food with all the necessary nutrients needed for human health.

The soil profile is an important tool in nutrient management. By examining a soil profile, we can gain valuable insight into soil fertility. As the soil weathers and/or organic matter decomposes, the profile of the soil changes.

Soils and vegetation have a reciprocal relationship. Healthy soils are crucial for ensuring the continued growth of natural and managed vegetation, providing feed, fibre, fuel, medicinal products and other ecosystem services such as climate regulation and oxygen production.

Parent material is the starting point for most soil development. The parent material may be mineral rock and/or organic matter. When parent rock material is exposed to the atmosphere or when organic matter and/or minerals are deposited on the earth's surface, soil formation begins.

They are produced from rocks (parent material) through the processes of weathering and natural erosion. Water, wind, temperature change, gravity, chemical interaction, living organisms and pressure differences all help break down parent material.