USDA launches International Year of Soils initiative
January 09, 2015 |06:31 PM
The Agriculture Department this week launched its celebration of the International Year of Soils, in conjunction with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
In a ceremony Tuesday on USDA’s patio, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and other officials said the idea is to make people aware of the importance of healthy soils. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), working within the framework of the Global Soils Partnership (see link), spearheaded the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly designating 2015 as the International Year of Soils.
“Healthy soil is the foundation that ensures working farms and ranches become more productive, resilient to climate change and better prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” Vilsack said during the event.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who established the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service), said that a nation that destroys its soil destroys itself, Vilsack noted.
“This country has been blessed with extraordinary soil, and its capacity to produce is one of the great strengths,” Vilsack said. But he added, “The soils in the United States and around the world are challenged. They are challenged by short-term thinking.”
USDA, he said, has launched a “soil health campaign” to make sure soils remain covered as long as possible to retain nutrients and water. Vilsack said USDA wants to continue promoting double cropping, agro-forestry and irrigation systems. In 2015, USDA will look to expand partnerships, regional conservation partnerships and innovations, he added.
“Most people don’t realize that just beneath our feet lies a diverse, complex, life-giving ecosystem that sustains our entire existence,” said NRCS chief Jason Weller, who is coordinating activities to mark USDA’s involvement in the International Year of Soils. “In one teaspoon of healthy soils, there are more microorganisms than there are people on earth.”
Weller said NRCS wants to develop a single test for soil quality. (See following story.)
Catherine Woteki
Agriculture Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics Catherine Woteki illustrated how people take soils for granted by noting that she shocked her friends on New Year’s Eve when she told them that 2015 would be the International Year of Soils.
USDA, Woteki said, is collecting data on soils through a network of approximately 100 benchmark research facilities.
U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell noted that soils are “all part of a system.”
The forests in the eastern part of the United States were degraded in the early part of the 20th century, and there was a “massive loss of soil,” Tidwell said.
After that experience, Tidwell noted, “the public demanded change” and the U.S. Forest Service was established. During the International Year of Soils, he said, he hopes the American awareness of soils will “shift from being taken for granted to being valued.”
U.S. attitudes and activities on soil, he noted, could be an example for the rest of the world.
Carolyn Olson, a USDA researcher who is president of the Soil Science Society, said that “antibiotics are derived from soil” and wondered how often people think about “the soil beneath our feet.”
USDA’s and the Soil Science Society’s efforts in the International Year of Soils, she noted, will focus not only on research but on education, including lesson plans for kindergarten through 12th-grade classes.
In a ceremony Tuesday on USDA’s patio, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and other officials said the idea is to make people aware of the importance of healthy soils. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), working within the framework of the Global Soils Partnership (see link), spearheaded the adoption of a resolution by the UN General Assembly designating 2015 as the International Year of Soils.
“Healthy soil is the foundation that ensures working farms and ranches become more productive, resilient to climate change and better prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century,” Vilsack said during the event.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who established the Soil Conservation Service (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service), said that a nation that destroys its soil destroys itself, Vilsack noted.
“This country has been blessed with extraordinary soil, and its capacity to produce is one of the great strengths,” Vilsack said. But he added, “The soils in the United States and around the world are challenged. They are challenged by short-term thinking.”
USDA, he said, has launched a “soil health campaign” to make sure soils remain covered as long as possible to retain nutrients and water. Vilsack said USDA wants to continue promoting double cropping, agro-forestry and irrigation systems. In 2015, USDA will look to expand partnerships, regional conservation partnerships and innovations, he added.
“Most people don’t realize that just beneath our feet lies a diverse, complex, life-giving ecosystem that sustains our entire existence,” said NRCS chief Jason Weller, who is coordinating activities to mark USDA’s involvement in the International Year of Soils. “In one teaspoon of healthy soils, there are more microorganisms than there are people on earth.”
Weller said NRCS wants to develop a single test for soil quality. (See following story.)
Agriculture Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics Catherine Woteki illustrated how people take soils for granted by noting that she shocked her friends on New Year’s Eve when she told them that 2015 would be the International Year of Soils.
USDA, Woteki said, is collecting data on soils through a network of approximately 100 benchmark research facilities.
U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell noted that soils are “all part of a system.”
The forests in the eastern part of the United States were degraded in the early part of the 20th century, and there was a “massive loss of soil,” Tidwell said.
After that experience, Tidwell noted, “the public demanded change” and the U.S. Forest Service was established. During the International Year of Soils, he said, he hopes the American awareness of soils will “shift from being taken for granted to being valued.”
U.S. attitudes and activities on soil, he noted, could be an example for the rest of the world.
Carolyn Olson, a USDA researcher who is president of the Soil Science Society, said that “antibiotics are derived from soil” and wondered how often people think about “the soil beneath our feet.”
USDA’s and the Soil Science Society’s efforts in the International Year of Soils, she noted, will focus not only on research but on education, including lesson plans for kindergarten through 12th-grade classes.
