essay about soil importance

Why are soils important?

Soil is our life support system. Soils anchor roots, hold water and store nutrients. Soils are home to earthworms, termites and a myriad of micro-organisms that fix nitrogen and decompose organic matter. We build on soil as well as with it.

Soil plays a vital role in the Earth’s ecosystem and without soil, human life would be very difficult.

Soil provides plants a foothold for their roots and holds the necessary nutrients for plants to grow. Soil filters the rainwater and regulates the discharge of excess rainwater, preventing flooding.  It also buffers against pollutants, thus protecting groundwater quality.

Soil is capable of storing large amounts of organic carbon. It is the largest terrestrial store of carbon. On average, the soil contains about three times more organic carbon than the vegetation and about twice as much carbon than is present in the atmosphere [ source ]. This is of particular importance in efforts to mitigate climate change. Carbon can come out of the atmosphere and be stored in the soil, helping to re-balance the global carbon budget.

Soil provides people with some essential construction and manufacturing materials: we build our houses with bricks made from clay and we drink coffee from mugs that are essentially baked soil (clay). Water is served in a glass made from sand (silicon dioxide).

Rocks and minerals come to mind as the basis of soil material, however the soil also hosts a great deal of living organisms. The biodiversity of visible and microscopic life which uses the soil as their home is vast. The soil is one of the planet’s great reservoirs of undiscovered microorganisms and therefore genetic material which can become the basis of other scientific research such as developing new medicines.

Soil is also an archive. It presents a record of past environmental conditions by storing natural artifacts from past ecosystems like pollen. Many artifacts from human history are also stored underground, which archeologists carefully uncover and use to understand how civilizations have evolved.

Soil functions are general soil capabilities that are important for many areas of life including agriculture, environmental management, nature protection, landscape architecture and urban applications. Six key soil functions are:

• Food and other biomass production
• Environmental Interaction: storage, filtering, and transformation
• Biological habitat and gene pool
• Source of raw materials
• Physical and cultural heritage
• Platform for man-made structures: buildings, highways

Why Soil is More Important than you Think

Table of Contents

Did you know that 87% of life on Earth is sustained by just 39 inches of topsoil? The usable topsoil we have left is rapidly decreasing; over the past 40 years, we have lost 40% of our topsoil. According to the United Nations, we have only enough soil left for approximately 80 to 100 more harvests, equivalent to just 45 to 60 years of agriculture. This is a deeply concerning reality, as soil degradation not only impacts our ability to grow food, but also has far-reaching consequences for the environment and local communities. Let’s explore the causes and consequences of soil degradation, and what we can do to protect and restore this vital resource.

Why are we losing ground?

One of the major causes of soil degradation is the overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These substances are used to promote plant growth and protect crops from pests, but their excessive use can disrupt the balance of microorganisms in the soil and lead to the loss of vital nutrients. This can result in reduced crop yields and negative impacts on the environment and local communities.

Another factor that contributes to soil degradation is monoculture , or the cultivation of a single crop over a large area. This practice can reduce the diversity of microorganisms in the soil and make it more vulnerable to erosion and nutrient depletion. It can also lead to the overuse of chemicals, as farmers may rely on them to protect their crops.

The dirty byproducts of soil degradation

Soil degradation has serious consequences for agriculture and the environment.

Decreased crop yields: Soil degradation can lead to decreased crop yields, as the soil becomes less fertile and less able to support plant growth. This can have serious consequences for food security and livelihoods, particularly in areas where agriculture is the main source of income. For example, soil degradation in the Sahel region of Africa has been linked to overgrazing, overuse of land, and a lack of proper management practices. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), approximately 85% of the land in the Sahel region is degraded to some extent. This has led to decreased crop yields, food insecurity, and poverty in the region.

Erosion and landslides: Soil erosion is the process by which soil is carried away by wind or water, leading to a loss of topsoil and reduced soil fertility. Erosion can be exacerbated by soil degradation, as the soil becomes less able to hold onto moisture and nutrients.

In extreme cases, erosion can lead to landslides, which can cause damage to infrastructure and loss of life. For example, landslides caused by soil erosion have been a major problem in the Philippines, particularly in the aftermath of natural disasters such as typhoons. According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), landslides were the second leading cause of disaster-related deaths in the Philippines between 2000 and 2019. Soil erosion has also been linked to the loss of agricultural land and decreased crop yields in the country.

Water pollution: Soil degradation can also contribute to water pollution, as the loss of soil structure and nutrients can lead to the leaching of chemicals into groundwater and surface water. This can have serious consequences for human health and the environment. For example, agricultural runoff from soil erosion has been a major contributor to water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay in the United States. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, agricultural practices, including the use of fertilizers and pesticides, are the leading source of pollution in the bay. Soil erosion from agricultural land has also been linked to the loss of habitats for fish and other aquatic species in the bay.

Loss of biodiversity: Biodiversity loss is an unfortunate result of soil degradation, as the loss of soil structure and nutrients can make it less suitable for supporting a diverse array of plant and animal life. This can have serious consequences for ecosystems and the services they provide, such as pollination and pest control. For example, soil degradation due to the overuse of pesticides has been linked to declines in populations of bees and other pollinators in the United Kingdom.

Solutions to soil degradation

But it’s not too late to turn things around. There are many ways that we can work to restore and protect our soil, including the following:

Conservation Tillage: Conservation tillage is when farmers minimize the amount of soil disturbance during farming to help preserve the soil structure and reduce erosion. This can be done through practices like no-till farming, where the soil isn’t plowed or tilled before planting, and reduced tillage, where the soil is tilled less than in traditional farming methods.

Crop Rotation: Another solution is crop rotation, where farmers plant different crops in a specific order over time. This helps to improve soil fertility and reduce pests and diseases. For example, rotating between nitrogen-fixing crops, like legumes, and non-nitrogen-fixing crops, like cereals, can add nitrogen to the soil and improve fertility. Crop rotation can also break the life cycle of pests and diseases that are specific to certain crops.

Cover Crops: Cover crops, like legumes and grasses, can be planted to protect the soil from erosion and improve its fertility. These crops are often planted between main crops or in the off-season, and they help to stabilize the soil surface and intercept rainwater to prevent erosion. They also add organic matter and nutrients to the soil as they decompose, improving soil fertility.

Composting: Composting is another solution, which is the process of decomposing organic matter, like food scraps and yard waste, to create a nutrient-rich soil amendment. This helps to recycle nutrients and organic matter back into the soil, improving its structure and fertility.

Integrated Pest Management: Integrated pest management is a sustainable way to manage pests and diseases, using a variety of techniques like biological controls and reduced pesticide use. This can involve releasing predatory insects to control pest populations, using trap crops to attract pests away from main crops, and using pest-resistant crop varieties.

Water Conservation: Water conservation is important to reduce the amount of water needed for crop production and prevent soil erosion caused by over-irrigation. Water-saving techniques like drip irrigation can be used, as well as mulching to retain moisture in the soil and water harvesting, which involves collecting and storing rainwater for use in crop production.

Soil Erosion Control: To control soil erosion, physical barriers like terracing or windbreaks can be used. Cover crops and conservation tillage can also help to reduce soil disturbance and stabilize the soil surface. Other measures include using erosion-resistant crop varieties, establishing buffer zones around bodies of water, and implementing proper drainage systems.

What can we do to help?

Here are a few ideas for calls to action that people can do at home to protect soil:

• Start composting! By composting your food scraps and yard waste, you can help to recycle nutrients and organic matter back into the soil. Need some help getting started? Organizations like R City can help you along your compost journey!
• Use less water when watering your plants and lawn, and consider implementing water-saving techniques like drip irrigation. Over-irrigation can lead to soil erosion and the depletion of groundwater resources.
• Support sustainable agriculture by choosing products that are grown using practices that protect soil health, such as organic farming or regenerative agriculture.
• Use pesticides and fertilizers sparingly, and consider using natural alternatives when possible. Excess use of these chemicals can have negative impacts on soil health.
• Plant a tree or shrub in your yard to help stabilize the soil and intercept rainwater to prevent erosion.

Next time you think about the food on your plate, remember that it starts with the soil. Let’s work together to protect this vital resource for future generations.

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• ENVIRONMENT

Why soil matters (and what we can do to save it)

Soil is failing across the world: every five seconds a soccer pitch of soil is eroded, and it’s estimated that by 2050 around 90 percent of the Earth’s soils could be degraded. What does this mean for people and planet, and what can we do to restore a healthy balance to the soil we need to survive?

A worm burrows its way through the dark earth, ingesting particles of soil and expelling nutrient-rich casts in a constant forage for food. Charles Darwin described earthworms as one of the most important creatures on Earth. Worms are critical to soil health, and without soil Planet Earth would be little more than a lifeless rock. So why is it that most of us take the earth beneath our feet for granted?

We might imagine soil as endless and indestructible: it is neither. Only about 7.5 percent of the earth’s surface provides the soil we rely on for agriculture, and it is remarkably fragile. Topsoil is used to grow 95 percent of our food, and it is disappearing ten times faster than it is being replaced: America’s corn belt has already lost much of its topsoil, threatening livelihoods and communities as well as food supply. The reality is that it takes thousands of years to create an inch of fertile topsoil, but it can be destroyed in minutes.

Healthy soil is a dynamic living ecosystem: a complex combination of minerals and organic matter containing air, water, and life. Worms are not alone in the ground, just a gram of dirt can contain as many as 50,000 species, all interacting with each other to keep their soil habitat healthy and productive. The activity of these organisms, the type of rock particles, the volume of organic matter, and the proportion of air and water all combine to create hundreds of different types of soil. These range from loose sandy soils to waterlogged peats to the beautifully balanced loam that is so well suited to agriculture. But human activity is destroying the balance and one-third of the world’s soil is already degraded.

Soil degradation, where soil loses the physical, chemical, or biological qualities that support life, is a natural process but it is being accelerated by human activity. Pollution kills microbial life in the soil; deforestation and development disturb soil structure making it vulnerable to erosion; soil compaction associated with farming and urbanization squeezes the air out of the ground and prevents it from absorbing water. Meanwhile, climate change continues to dry the ground: three-quarters of Spain is at risk of becoming desert.

But perhaps the biggest threat to soil is intensive farming. The need to feed a growing population and drive greater efficiency has sacrificed natural balance for increased yields. Monoculture farming, where one crop is grown repeatedly on the same ground, drains the soil of specific nutrients and allows pests, pathogens, and diseases to thrive. The pesticides and fertilizers used to counter these problems come with significant drawbacks. Excessive use of pesticides reduces vital biodiversity; the addition of nitrogen fertilizer speeds up the breakdown of organic matter, starving the soil’s microbial populations.

Even the plow, often considered one of history’s great inventions, can be bad news for soil. Tilling breaks up compacted ground, controls weeds, and incorporates organic matter, but we now understand how it also damages soil structure, dries out topsoil, and accelerates erosion. Similarly, the age-old practice of irrigation, when overdone, increases the volume of salt in the soil, damaging its biodiversity, water quality, and productivity. As a result of such destructive practices, in Europe alone, around 70 percent of the soil is considered unhealthy.

This matters, because without soil we cannot survive. Healthy soil is the root source of a livelihood that sustains farmers and communities all around the world: good soil produces good crops that deliver a good income that enables families to flourish. But it’s more than this. Soil filters the water we drink, grows the food we eat, and captures the carbon dioxide that causes climate change. Soil is the largest carbon sink after the ocean and holds more carbon than all terrestrial plant life on the planet. But when we damage the soil, water systems become disrupted, food production declines, and carbon is released into the atmosphere. Any one of these essential soil functions would be reason enough to preserve our soil: taken together they are a compelling argument for urgent action.

So, how can we save our soils? Many of the ways to reduce and even reverse the damage are reliant on changes to current agricultural practices. By not tilling the land and reducing our reliance on pesticides and fertilizers, soil starts to recover. Replacing our reliance on monoculture with a return to crop rotations gives soil time to replenish the nutrients needed by plants. Agroforestry could take this further, growing a variety of plants together in ways that their biological systems support each other and help soil to flourish. Similarly, promoting soil fungi helps plants extract nutrients from the soil while increasing resistance to disease and building healthy soil structure. These good practices could regenerate our soils which helps sustain livelihoods and local communities, and keep people and planet healthy: but they require big changes.

Inspiring a fundamental shift in the way we farm needs to be driven by both the consumer and the companies they buy from. Responsible companies, including Unilever, are making serious commitments to minimize the damage done to the soil, while actively working to regenerate degraded land. This includes encouraging and supporting suppliers to improve soil health through regenerative practices such as growing cover crops that protect and nourish the soil between harvests: in Iowa, a state that has lost half its topsoil in a hundred years, farmers using cover crops reported that their land weathered heavy spring winter rains better than their neighbors’ land.

Knorr, Unilever’s largest food brand, is looking to expand such practices. It has set a goal of growing 80 percent of its key ingredients following Unilever’s Regenerative Agriculture Principles by 2026. Already, Knorr has partnered with Spanish tomato growers to use cover crops to improve soil health and reduce the use and impact of synthetic fertilizers; in the US Knorr is working with its suppliers to grow rice in ways that will reduce its demand for water and cut methane emissions. These are two of the many ongoing and planned projects as Knorr expands and scales up such projects while sharing their knowledge and inspiring others to transform the way food is grown.

Soil needs all the help it can get. It is a priceless, irreplaceable resource and key to sustaining all life on earth. Soil is struggling for survival but there is still time to rebuild our soils as healthy, productive, sustainable ecosystems. As the world learns to work together to preserve our oceans, our forests, and our biodiversity, we now need to look to the ground. The humble earthworm can only do so much: it’s time for individuals, communities, companies, and countries to help save our soils.

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Why is soil so important.

Far from being just ‘dirt’ or ‘mud’ beneath our feet, soil is one of the most diverse ecosystems on our planet. Healthy soil is a life support system for much of the life on Earth.

• What is Soil?
• What is Soil Erosion and Degradation?
• How can we Help Protect Soil?

Soil is vital to life on Earth. Without healthy soil, plants cannot grow. The food that we grow to eat and the plants that animals eat all depend on the soil.  Organisms that live in the soil depend on it as a habitat. These organisms include bacteria and fungi that help to break down decaying matter so that when a living thing dies, its remains can be ‘recycled’ back into the ecosystem. 

In a healthy topsoil rich with nutrients, a single gram could contain as many as 75,000 species of bacteria, 25,000 species of fungi, 1,000 species of protozoa (single celled microscopic organisms), and several hundred species of nematodes (small worms).  Plant roots are dependent on these tiny organisms to provide them with the nutrition that they need to grow and to resist diseases. 

Soils are also able to absorb and filter water, helping to filter and purify it as it travels through the ground to rivers, or deep underground to water stores known as aquifers. Underground water is some of the purest water available as soil is able to filter out pollutants. By absorbing amounts of rain water, soil can prevent flooding. Soil also helps protect the planet from climate change. When plants turn the sun’s light into a source of food using photosynthesis, they also absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Dead plants rot down and the carbon inside them becomes ‘sequestered’ (stored) back in the soil. Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can lead to global warming, which causes climate change. By sequestering carbon away, soil helps prevent too much being in the atmosphere. After oceans, soils are the largest ‘carbon sinks’ on the planet, even beating forests in their ability to capture carbon dioxide from the air.

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Water Conservation — Soil and Water Conservation: Importance, Techniques, and Challenges

Soil and Water Conservation: Importance, Techniques, and Challenges

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Published: Sep 5, 2023

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Introduction, techniques for soil and water conservation, challenges to soil and water conservation.

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Importance of Soil Management in Sustainable Agriculture

• First Online: 10 November 2023

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• Binaya Kumar Pattnaik 2 , 3   na1 ,
• Chandan Sahu 4   na1 ,
• Shuvasish Choudhury 5   na1 ,
• Subhas Chandra Santra 6   na1 &
• Debojyoti Moulick 5 , 6   na1  

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With changing climate and declining fertile soil, the pressure on land to sustain the huge global population is intense. Soil management with respect to organic matter, nutrient turn over, and conventional agricultural practices thus becomes vital pillars of crop yield and sustainable agriculture. The bottlenecks in maintaining the sustainable practices include pest infestations and bioaccumulation of toxic metals through its entry into the food chain. The knowledge and understanding coupled with schematic implementation of low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA) and high external input agriculture (HEIA) may be an effective strategy to counter the declining status of fertile soil profile. Further, soil acts as an important carbon sink which accounts for 50–66% of global carbon loss, which indicate the necessity of soil management in the context of carbon sequestration. Climate change can trigger intensive soil erosion, reduced soil fertility, and drastic reduction in agricultural productivity lead into soil de-stability. Therefore, this chapter intends to decipher the different prospects of sustainable agricultural practices through regulation of strategies associated with soil management, organic carbon and matter, nutrient management, pest reduction, and pesticide application, etc. This chapter is expected to aid the literature by providing a wider scope of view for sustainable agricultural practices.

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Gangadhar Meher University, Sambalpur, Odisha, India

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Department of Environmental Science, University of Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India

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Plant Stress Biology and Metabolomics Laboratory, Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics, Assam University, Silchar, India

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Pattnaik, B.K., Sahu, C., Choudhury, S., Santra, S.C., Moulick, D. (2023). Importance of Soil Management in Sustainable Agriculture. In: Hasanuzzaman, M. (eds) Climate-Resilient Agriculture, Vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37424-1_22

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Home / Blog

Soil Conservation Guide: Importance and Practices

February 26, 2021 

Soils in all climates, including Arctic ecosystems , are essential to the global carbon cycle. The BBC reports that the thawing of permafrost — a type of soil in the Arctic that holds an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of carbon (more than Earth’s atmosphere and forests combined) — is releasing both carbon and poisons, such as toxins and diseases , into the atmosphere. As this Arctic soil continues to thaw, it further accelerates climate change, creating a harmful cycle that will impact future populations.

To help fight climate change, farmers committed to sustainable agriculture, scientists, and researchers champion soil conservation, which promotes healthy, fertile, productive, and resilient soils. Soil conservation is essential for:

• Reducing climate change’s destructive impact worldwide
• Maintaining a balanced climate cycle
• Providing healthy ecosystems where plants, trees, and animals can thrive
• Ensuring healthy agricultural yields through sustainable farming practices

What is soil conservation?

Soil provides the nutrients essential for plant growth, animal life, and millions of microorganisms. However, if soil becomes unhealthy, unstable, or polluted, the life cycle stops. Soil conservation focuses on keeping soils healthy through a combination of practices and techniques. Individuals committed to soil conservation help ensure that soil is fertile and productive, and protect it from erosion and deterioration.

Threats to soil conservation

The primary threats to soil conservation are climate change and traditional farming practices , according to the United Nations. Traditional farming practices include the overuse of harmful pesticides that contaminate soils, slash-and-burn methods, and land overuse. Soil conservation aims to mitigate these threats.

Chemical contamination

The use of pesticides can contaminate the soil, as well as nearby vegetation and water sources, with harmful chemicals. In addition to contamination, chemicals used on crops can be toxic to important beneficial insects, such as bees, as well as fish and bird populations. According to a recent study about bird biodiversity in the U.S. published in Nature Sustainability, the grassland bird population has declined by 53% since 1970. Among the causes reported for this decrease is the growing use of pesticides.

Slash and burn

Slash-and-burn farming is the practice of burning and clearing forests to make way for farmland. This method kills plant species and displaces wildlife from their natural habitats. Land cleared using slash and burn is only used while it’s productive for farming. Once it loses its fertility, another patch of forest is identified for clearing. This unsustainable process repeats endlessly, preventing soil from recovering sufficiently to support healthy ecosystems.

Land overuse

Overuse of land can limit soil’s ability to play its part in the global climate cycle. For example, overcutting forests and woodlands for timber and overgrazing pastures can far outpace the natural regrowth of vegetation, subjecting soil to increased exposure to erosion . As a result, land can lose its arability and become a desert.

Soil conservation is important for sustainability

For those working in sustainability, an understanding of soil’s role can create opportunities to develop new solutions and promote stewardship of our environment. Why is soil conservation important for sustainability? Simply put, without soil conservation, soil erosion would increase. Soil erosion impacts markets worldwide, including $8 billion in losses due to lower crop yields and increased water usage.

Why is soil important ? Soil is essential to food production. Crops need soil to grow, and farm animals need vegetation for feed. Conserving soil can help address food insecurity and promote healthy communities. Soil also helps to create a cleaner climate, absorbing about a third of the carbon dioxide that fossil fuels and industrial operations emit, according to the Climate Change and Land report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Healthy stewardship of soil can help mitigate climate change’s impact.

Soil conservation resources

For more information about soil conservation, consider these resources:

• Conservation Institute, “Soil Conservation — What Do I Need To Know About It? Learn About Its Importance” : Information about soil conservation, from threats to techniques.
• Conservation International, “To Stop Climate Catastrophe, Look to Soil: Study” : Questions and answers about soil’s role in the carbon cycle.
• Earth Observing System, Soil Conservation Methods: Benefits of Implementation : A discussion of soil conservation highlighting strategies for sustainability.
• IPCC, “Chapter 2: Land-Climate Interactions” : Findings and statistics revealing climate’s impact on land and soil as well as mitigation strategies.
• World Resources Institute, “The Causes and Effects of Soil Erosion, and How to Prevent It” : A deeper look at soil erosion causes and solutions.

What makes soil so important?

Soils help meet societal needs, providing food, energy, and nutrients. They also help minimize the impact of climate change and promote healthy ecosystems. Below are three reasons why soil is so important:

Soil is home to many living things

Soil organisms ensure sustainable food systems and mitigate climate change. Plants and animals rely on soils for food, shelter, and more. Soil is also home to fungi, algae, and unicellular and multicellular organisms that are invisible to the naked eye, such as bacteria and protozoa. As they move through the soil, microorganisms help improve drainage and soil structure, making soil more fertile and productive.

Soil is key to the carbon cycle

Soil plays a critical role in the carbon cycle : the continuous process by which carbon atoms travel between the atmosphere and Earth. For example, in breaking down organic matter in the soil, microorganisms release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and create nutrients and minerals that feed plants and crops. Soil also naturally absorbs carbon from the atmosphere in a process known as sequestration . Healthier soil absorbs more carbon, reducing the effects of greenhouse gases.

Soil’s essential roles

Farmers rely on soils to make food production possible, feeding people and livestock. Soil also acts as a purifier: As surface water travels through the ground to replenish aquifers, soil filters out toxins and impurities, making it drinkable. Soil also provides raw materials for infrastructure. For example, soil is an important element in making bricks for buildings.

Resources: Why soil is important

Consider these resources for insights into soil’s role in sustainability and creating a healthier world.

• Awe International, “Saving Our Soils for Future Generations” : An exploration of why healthy soils are essential for sustainable societies.
• Natural Resources Conservation Service, “The Heart of Soil: The Importance of Soil Health Principles” : An examination of healthy soil’s role in sustainable agriculture.
• Soil Science Society of America, “Soil Basics” : A deep dive into soil: what it is, its different types, and its function.
• Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, “Why Soil Organic Matter Is So Important” : A comprehensive explanation of organic matter’s role as the foundation for healthy plants, animals, and humans.

Benefits of soil conservation

Soil conservation contributes to sustainability and offers the following benefits:

• Improves soil quality and productivity. Increased fertility improves crop yields, reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, and saves money.
• Optimizes water infiltration. Better filtration increases water storage, preventing soil from drying out.
• Provides food and shelter. Soil-producing vegetation provides nourishment to all types of animals and offers protection from the elements.

Soil conservation also helps to minimize the following:

• Loss of fertile and arable land, impacting crops and livestock production, as well as the economy
• Pollution and sedimentation flowing in streams and rivers, affecting fish and other species
• Erosion and environmental degradation and desertification of land , potentially increasing flooding and negatively impacting forest ecosystems

Soil conservation practices

Soil conservation is key to environmental sustainability : It helps protect natural resources and watersheds, restores habitats for plants and wildlife, improves water quality, and makes soil healthier. Soil conservation also creates economic opportunity. Productive and healthy soil helps farmers meet increased demand for agricultural commodities from a growing global population, driving economic growth.

No-till farming

Tilling turns over about 10 inches of topsoil and allows farmers to plant more seeds with less effort. A downside of tilling is that it removes the plant covering, potentially leaving the soil bare, decreasing the amount of nutrient-rich organic matter, and reducing its ability to absorb water and retain nutrients. Tilling can also make the soil more susceptible to erosion. In no-till farming, seeds are planted in narrow furrows, eliminating the need to plow.

No-till farming protects the soil from moisture loss due to high temperatures because cover crop residue remains on the surface of the soil. The residue layer also helps infiltrate water into the soil and increases organic matter and microorganisms , further enriching the soil.

Terrace farming

Terrace farming is an agricultural practice that uses terraces, or steps, built into the slopes of hilly or mountainous areas to create a water catchment system for crops and is commonly used in growing rice. Rainwater carries nutrients and vegetation from one terrace to the next, so the soil remains healthy. Terrace farming also reduces soil erosion and improves soil productivity in otherwise idle plots of land.

Contour farming

Like terrace farming, contour farming involves growing crops on hills, but instead of changing the structure of a hill, the farmer uses its natural slope. In contour farming , a farmer plows the soil parallel to the hill’s contours, creating rows of small dams that minimize runoff of essential nutrients, organisms, and plants, while increasing water infiltration in the soil. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that contour farming can reduce soil erosion by as much as 50%.

Crop rotation

Instead of planting the same crop year after year on the same plot of land, crop rotation involves planning out growing seasons for different crops. This method of sustainable agriculture requires long-term planning, with crops changed every season. In addition to improving soil health and organic matter, crop rotation reduces the need for fertilizer and pesticides, lowering costs. It also helps prevent excess chemicals from entering water supplies, improving water quality.

Windbreaks are rows of trees and bushes planted between fields of crops, reducing the erosive power of the wind on the soil. Windbreaks also provide homes for living things. From an economic standpoint, using trees that produce fruits and nuts in windbreaks can diversify farm income.

Wetlands restoration

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines wetlands restoration and protection as “removing a threat or preventing the decline of wetland conditions.” Wetlands provide a habitat for living creatures of all types. They also act as buffers, protecting farmlands from floods.

Buffer strips

Like windbreaks, buffer strips are designated areas of land planted with trees and bushes. Instead of protecting soil from the wind, their purpose is to prevent water runoff and reduce erosion.

Forest cover reestablishment

In areas where soil has degraded, the reestablishment of forest cover can improve soil and restore ecosystem health. This method provides shade for crops and is particularly useful for forest farming , which cultivates high-value crops, such as those used for medicinal purposes.

Earthworms are among the most productive organisms in soil. They digest plant matter, releasing essential nutrients into the soil, and their tunnel networks create air channels that help water move through the soil.

Soil conservation: A key component of reducing climate change’s impact

Unsustainable agricultural practices can affect soil health, which in turn affects the global climate cycle. Poorly managed soil can release excess carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Restoring degraded soil and using soil conservation practices in agriculture can effectively sequester carbon, helping build resilience to the effects of climate change.

Soil conservation also promotes sustainable and economic development to meet the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) : 17 goals focused on providing a “sustainable future for all.” According to the European Environment Agency, seven SDGs directly correlate to soil conservation practices , including the following:

• SDG 6 — Clean Water and Sanitation: Through drainage and purification, soil helps to provide clean water for drinking and farming.
• SDG 13 — Climate Action: Through sequestration, soil can play a pivotal part in combating climate change by reducing atmospheric carbon.
• SDG 15 — Life on Land: Healthy soils are essential for sustainable management of forests, fighting desertification, and reversing land degradation.

Building the resilience of our ecosystems is critical to addressing the challenges of a changing climate. One key factor sits right under our feet: soil. Through soil conservation, we can work to minimize the impact of climate change and support the long-term needs of society.

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Largest Compilation of Structured Essays and Exams

Essay on Importance of Soil

January 21, 2018 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

The life supporting natural resource which is formed by mixing of weathered rock materials and   decomposed biomass consisting of organic matter is called soil. It is one of the important natural resources. Soil is the most essential element of existence of life on earth.

Soil is the living ecosystem. Without soil, there is no existence of life.  In our Vedas, it is said that life form on this earth consists of five elements and soil is one of them.

So, creation of life form belongs to soil, development of life form belongs to soil, destruction of life form belongs to soil.

“If a healthy soil is full of death, it is also full of life.”

Table of Contents

Formation of soil

Rocks are the chief sources for the parent materials over which soil formation takes place. Rocks are converted into parent materials by the weathering process. In other words, weathering process precedes the soil formation. Parent materials include rocks, loses, alluvium, sand etc.

Weathering process means the physical and chemical deterioration of rocks over time due to factors like temperature, heat, pressure, water, wind etc. It takes more than thousand years for the formation of just one-inch layer of soil.

Components of soil

Soil contains different kinds of components. The components are given below

Air- In between the spaces of soil particles air is present. Soil with loose surface allows air diffusion in to it. Air contains gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen etc. Concentration of carbon dioxide is more than other gases.

Water- Water is the solution of organic and inorganic compounds. Soil contains water as it contains both organic and inorganic materials. Soil with more number of pores contain more water as water is absorbed in those pores.

Minerals- During weathering process, disintegration of rocks occurs. At that time particles of minerals are formed inside the soil.

Organic matters- These are the decayed form of organic substances like plants, animals, micro-organisms on the soil. These kinds of substances increase the fertility of the soil.

Micro-organisms- Micro -organisms like bacteria, fungi, algae are present in high numbers in the soil. These organisms act as decomposers of plants, animals, other organisms.

The above all components make soil suitable for existence and development of life form.

Soil as life

“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and   resurrect or, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we have no community, because without proper care for it we have no life”   -Wendell Berry

So, the existence of life form on this earth solely depends on soil. It forms the surface and ecosystem of the earth.

Image Credit: Source

As we early stated that soil is the living ecosystem. Soil is the habitat of all kinds of organisms. Different kinds of bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoa and undiscovered microbes acting as decomposes are found in high numbers in soil.

These micro-organisms decompose dead plant and animal bodies. As a result, pollution due to decaying dead bodies of animals decreases and it increases the quantity of organic matters in soil which makes the soil more fertile suitable for cultivation.

Soil is the natural medium for plant growth. Soil contains air which consists of gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen. For plant growth air ventilation is needed. So, soil provides oxygen, air ventilation for plant to grow. Water is also a major component of soil.

For plant growth water is important as it act as nutrient carrier and a main factor of plant life. Soil also contains minerals like silicon, aluminium, phosphorous, magnesium, carbon, iron, nitrogen etc. which are important elements.

Non-renewable resources like coal, petroleum, gold, copper, silver are found inside the earth. The modern world is standstill without these resources. These resources have become the integrated part of our life.

Soil holds the souvenir of our past and our cultural heritage buried in it. Soil plays a vital role as carbon reservoir as it absorbs most of the carbon dioxide gas and reduces the greenhouse gas concentration to some extent. Soil decomposes the dead bodies of plants and animals but it preserves their existence in the form of fossil.

For us food, cloth, and house are basic needs of life. Soil is the origin for all the three needs. When there is no soil, there is no food, no cloth, no house.

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”    -Thoreau

Soil conservation

As soil is the origin of existence and development of life form on earth, conservation of it is must. Because without soil the whole living process is unthinkable. As earlier stated above that one-inch layer of soil formation takes more than thousand years.

Soil erosion mainly takes place due to water, wind, fertilizers etc. Heavy flow of water and heavy rainfall washes away the soil from one place to another. When there is no cover of plants, wind causes soil erosion. Loss of minerals, nutrients in soil as a result of utilization of fertilizers makes a steep erosion. Deforestation holds another cause.

Roots of trees hold the soil in a compact manner.  Litter of leaves resists soil erosion caused by wind and heavy rainfall. So, deforestation enhances the process of erosion.

Soil conservation includes following process

• Afforestation prevails erosion by reducing the velocity of wind and the roots held the soil in a strong manner.
• Growing of vegetation cover on the ground conserves soil.
• Crop rotation shoots up the productivity of the lands.
• Slowing down the water movement along the slope.
• Reduction in the usage of fertilizers, pesticides.
• Protection of soil from the strike of heavy water drops.

“Soil is a resource, a living, breathing entity that, if treated properly will maintain itself. When it has finally been depleted, the human population will disappear… project your imagination into the soil below you next time you go into the garden.

Think with compassion of the life that exists there. Think the drama, the sexuality, the harvesting, the work that carries on ceaselessly.”

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Why is soil and water so important.

•  Soil water is the global largest ‘reservoir’: globally two-thirds of all fresh water is held in soils as soil ‘reservoir’ or green water, accessible to plant; only one tenth of fresh water is blue water - stream flow and groundwater that can be abstracted for general use.
•  Soil water is a crucial nutrient to plants and is also a media for transporting nutrients for plant growth. It also plays key role in soil forming process, weathering of rocks and process of photosynthesis.
•  Soil water can become blue water or recharge groundwater by gravity.
•  Soil water controls the exchange of heat and water energy between the atmosphere and land surface

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Essay on Soil: Meaning, Composition and Layers

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After reading this article you will learn about Soil:- 1. Introduction to Soil 2. Meaning of Soil 3. Composition 4. Soil Layers 5. Basic Properties 6. Testing of Properties.

• Essay on the Testing of Soil Properties

Essay # 1. Introduction to Soil:

Soil is the surface layer of earth on which the human civilization depends for its existence. Actually soil represents the loose upper crust of the earth surface distinctly different from the underlying bed rock.

Its depth, colour, and composition vary from place to place, but all soils are common in consisting of inorganic (mineral) and organic matter, water, and gaseous phases. Every soil is made up of a succession of layers, collectively known as soil-profile, reaching down to the parent material.

The soil-profile consists of two or more horizontal layers, called horizons. The soil horizon may vary in thickness, mineral composition, and structure; they are indicated by the letters A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, etc. A1 horizon is the uppermost or surface layer of the soil and its fertility level is very important from viewpoint of an agriculturist.

Soil fertility depends not only on the presence of inorganic and organic substances, but also on the presence of various species of microorganisms which influence the qualitative composition of the soil.

The existence of soil, the store-house of Nature, furnishing substances for all plants, animals, men, and other organisms, dates back to uncountable periods, even long before the man appeared on the scene. Vast number of plants, animals and finally the man populated the earth and the soil supported them all entirely without human assistance.

That, soil is vastly complex material on the face of earth is the fundamental truth to be understood in its study. Being a common commodity, it means a different thing to a different man in different pursuit. A geologist would preferably consider it to be the outer loose crust of the earth surface; quite distinct from the bed rock lying beneath.

To a farmer, it is a medium to grow his crops in and from which the plants obtain their mechanical support and many of their nutrients. Chemically, the soil is endowed with a magnitude of organic and inorganic substances not found in the underlying strata; indeed it functions as nature’s chemical laboratory in which various dissolutions and synthetic processes go on continuously in a hidden manner.

A lay man, however, is always of the opinion that soil is dust, essentially a dead material, sustaining nothing like life within it. With regard to origin and evolution of life, it can be considered that soil is the depository of all lives within which are carried out most of the transformations that enable life to continue.

Ecologically, soil is the most dynamic component (lithosphere) of the global environment encompassing distinct communities of organisms in its realm.

For a building engineer, the soil is a substratum on which structures can be built. But nothing could be farther from the truth, a microbiologist would say. For him, soil appears to be a dynamic body on the surface of the earth, pulsating with life due to presence of myriads of microorganisms.

Essay # 2. Meaning of Soil:

The word ‘soil’ is derived from the latin word ‘solum’ , which means floor or ground.

Soil is a natural formation resulting from the transformation of surface rock by combination of climate, plant and animal life with ageing.

Soil is formed through following steps:

(a) The formation of regolith by the breakdown of the bed rocks process is called weathering or disintegration.

(b) The addition of organic matter resulting from the decomposition of plant and animal residue and reorganization of these components by soil material of varying depths.

‘Petrology’ is the science of rocks which forms soil. ‘Pedology’ is study of soil which includes origin of soil, its classification and its description. ‘Edaphology’ is the study of various properties of soil in relation to growth, nutrition and yield of crops.

Soil can also be defined as natural body which is formed at the boundary between lithosphere and biosphere by inter-chains of all factors involved in Soil formation considering both living and dead.

So soil contains not only minerals but organic (humus) and organo-mineral (complex or chilate) compounds. The soil contains 13 elements in general out of 16 required by plants for growth. The soil becomes polluted when the quantity of 13 elements decreases or increases irregularly due to industrial effluents.

Several hazardous chemicals and the mountains of wastes are ultimately dumped on the lands. Dumping of industrial and municipal wastes causes toxic substances to be leached and seep into the soil and affects the ground water course.

Modern agricultural practices introduce numerous pesticides, fungicides, bacteriocides, insecticides, biocides, fertilizers and manures, resulting in severe biological and chemical contamination of land. Apart from all these, direct pollution of soil by deadly pathogenic organism is also of major concern. The properties of soil change with pollution and sometimes soil losses its fertility permanently.

Essay # 3. Composition of Soil:

The chemical composition of soil is much diversified and depends upon chemical composition of rock but in general the following elements are present in it.

In many soils of arid areas the following water soluble salts have also been examined:

Except CaCO 3 , MgCO 3 and CaSO 4 all other salts dissolve completely in water.

Essay # 4. Soil Layers of Earth:

Soil is made up of rock which has been transformed into other layers due to vegetation and various micro and macro-organisms.

Several factors contribute to the formation of soil from the parent material. This includes the mechanical weathering of rocks due to temperature changes and abrasion, wind, moving water, glaciers, chemical weathering activities, and lichens. Climate and time are also important in the development of soil.

In extremely dry or cold climate soils develop very slowly, while in humid and warm climates soils develop more rapidly. Under ideal climatic conditions, soft parent material may develop into 1 cm of soil within 15 years. Under poor climatic conditions, a hard parent material may require hundreds of years to develop into soil.

Mature soils are arranged in a series of zones called ‘soil horizons’ . Each horizon has a distinct texture and composition that varies with different types of soils. A cross-sectional view of the horizons in soil is called ‘soil profile’ .

The top layer or the surface litter layer, called the ‘O-horizon’ . It consists mostly of freshly-fallen and partially-decomposed leaves, twigs, animal waste, fungi and other organic materials. Normally, it is brown or black. The uppermost layer of the soil is called the ‘A-horizon’. It consists of partially-decomposed organic matter (humus) and some inorganic mineral particles. It is usually darker and looser than the deeper layers.

The roots of most plants are found in these two upper layers. As long as these layers are anchored by vegetation, the soil stores water and releases it in a trickle throughout the year instead of in a force like a flood. These two top layers also contain a large amount of bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and other small insects, which help to recycle soil nutrients and contribute to soil fertility.

The ‘B-horizon’ , often called the subsoil, contains less organic material and fewer organisms than the A horizon. The area below the subsoil is called the ‘C- horizon’ and consists of weathered parent material. This parent material does not contain any organic materials. The chemical composition of the C-horizon helps to determine the pH of the soil and also influences the soil’s rate of water absorption and retention.

Soil with approximately equal mixture of clay sand, slit and humus are called loams.

Essay # 5. Basic Properties of Soils:

I. acidity and alkalinity of s oils:.

The pH of a good soil should be about 7 but due to industrial effluents the pH increases or decreases causing pollution in soil.

Soils are characterized by the following pH values:

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Unraveling differences in temperature sensitivity of soil organic matter decomposition under various oxygen conditions

by Frontiers Journals

Soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition is a key process that affects soil carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions. Investigating the temperature sensitivity (Q 10 ) of SOM decomposition and its regulating mechanisms is important for improving predictions of SOM stability and carbon fluxes under future warming.

Most studies on Q 10 are based on aerobic conditions, but little is known about how Q 10 varies in soils under oxygen limitation. A new study compares Q 10 under oxic, suboxic, and anoxic conditions in three grassland soils and reveals the different roles of substrate carbon quality and nitrogen limitation in regulating Q 10 . The findings were published in Soil Ecology Letters .

Xiaojuan Feng's team at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted soil microcosm incubation experiments to test how Q 10 varies in three grassland soils at different oxygen levels. They used three oxygen concentrations of 21%, 1% and 0% to simulate oxic, suboxic and anoxic conditions, respectively.

They found that Q 10 did not show consistent patterns under different oxygen conditions, suggesting that other factors may override the effect of oxygen on Q 10 . To delve deeper into these findings, they analyzed the soil properties by conducting a supplementary experiment and found that substrate carbon quality was a strong predictor of Q 10 in oxic soils, while nitrogen limitation was more important in suboxic and anoxic soils.

Professor Xiaojuan Feng, the corresponding author of the study, said, "We used incubated soils at varying temperatures to calculate Q 10 . This method is increasingly popular in estimating Q 10 , as it eliminates potential complications introduced by varying depletion rates of substrates at different, constant temperatures, which may affect soil C concentrations and microbial biomass in 'equal-time' incubations."

"Our study shows that substrate carbon quality and nitrogen limitation may play roles of varying importance in determining Q 10 under various oxygen conditions. This implies that the response of SOM decomposition to warming may differ among soil types and moisture regimes due to differences in substrate availability and quality as well as nitrogen status."

The study also highlights the importance of considering oxygen availability and its interactions with other factors when predicting soil carbon dynamics under climate change . Oxygen-deprived soils are widespread in wetlands and upland microsites, which contain a large proportion of global soil carbon stock.

Understanding how Q 10 varies under different oxygen conditions will help improve the accuracy and reliability of soil carbon models and better inform management practices for soil carbon sequestration.

Provided by Frontiers Journals

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Earth Day: What is it, when is it and why is it important?

Earth Day takes place on 22 April each year. Image:  UNSPLASH/Markus Spiske

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Hanh nguyen.

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This article was last updated on 11 April 2024. It was originally published on 19 April 2022.

• Earth Day takes place every year on 22 April and is one of the biggest environmental protest movements on the planet.
• The theme of Earth Day this year is 'Planet vs. Plastics' - campaigners are calling for a 60% reduction in the production of plastics by 2040.
• The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2024 finds that environmental risks make up half of the top 10 risks over the next 10 years.

“Good evening, a unique day in American history is ending. A day set aside for a nationwide outpouring of mankind seeking its own survival.”

Those were the words of US TV presenter Walter Cronkite as he described the aftermath of the first Earth Day back in 1970.

Here’s what you need to know about Earth Day in 2024.

What is Earth Day and what is the theme in 2024?

Earth Day is an international day devoted to our planet. It draws attention to the environment and promotes conservation and sustainability. Each year on 22 April, around 1 billion people around the world take action to raise awareness of the climate crisis and bring about behavioural change to protect the environment.

Participation in Earth Day can take many forms, including small home or classroom projects like planting a herb garden or picking up litter. People also volunteer to plant trees, join other ecological initiatives or take part in street protests about climate change and environmental degradation.

Official Earth Day campaigns and projects aim to increase environmental literacy and bring together like-minded people or groups to address issues such as deforestation, biodiversity loss and other challenges .

The global theme for this year's Earth Day is ' Planet vs. Plastics ', which recognizes the threat plastics pose to human health and with campaigners demanding a 60% reduction in the production of plastics by 2040.

From 23 to 29 April 2024, governments and NGOs from around the world will gather in Ottawa to continue negotiating the terms of the United Nations Global Plastic Treaty .

How did Earth Day begin?

Millions of people took to the streets of US cities and towns on 22 April 1970 in mass protests over the damage being done to the planet and its resources. Amid the demonstrations, protesters brought New York City’s usually bustling Fifth Avenue to a halt, while students in Boston held a “die-in” at Logan Airport. The environmental impact of the post-war consumer boom was beginning to be felt at that time. Oil spills, factory pollution and other ecological threats were on the rise, with little if any legislation in place to prevent them.

The protests brought together people from all walks of American life – accounting for about 10% of the US population – to demonstrate and voice their demands for sustainable change. The Earth Day website calls it the birth of the modern environmental movement.

What led to the street protests in 1970?

Concerned about increasing levels of unchecked environmental destruction, Junior Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin suggested a series of “teach-ins” on university campuses across the US in 1969 to raise awareness of environmental threats. Nelson was joined by Congressman Pete McCloskey and activist Denis Hayes to organize the teach-ins, but the group soon recognized an opportunity to broaden the event’s appeal beyond student populations.

The newly named Earth Day protest events attracted national media attention and support from around 20 million Americans across age and political spectrums, occupations and income groups.

What did the protests achieve?

The Earth Day demonstrations left an indelible mark on US policy. By the end of 1970, the US Environmental Protection Agency came into being and a stream of laws followed to help protect the environment . These included the National Environmental Education Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Clean Air Act. Further legislation was soon introduced to protect water quality and endangered species, and to control the use of harmful chemicals and pesticides.

When did Earth Day go global?

Earth Day went beyond the US in 1990. Around 200 million people from 141 countries joined efforts to boost recycling around the world that year, paving the way for the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Climate change poses an urgent threat demanding decisive action. Communities around the world are already experiencing increased climate impacts, from droughts to floods to rising seas. The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report continues to rank these environmental threats at the top of the list.

To limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C and as close as possible to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, it is essential that businesses, policy-makers, and civil society advance comprehensive near- and long-term climate actions in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The World Economic Forum's Climate Initiative supports the scaling and acceleration of global climate action through public and private-sector collaboration. The Initiative works across several workstreams to develop and implement inclusive and ambitious solutions.

This includes the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, a global network of business leaders from various industries developing cost-effective solutions to transitioning to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy. CEOs use their position and influence with policy-makers and corporate partners to accelerate the transition and realize the economic benefits of delivering a safer climate.

Contact us to get involved.

This “Earth Summit”, as it became known, led to the formation of the UN Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity , along with the Commission on Sustainable Development to monitor and report on the implementation of Earth Summit agreements.

And as citizens were increasingly concerned with corporate impacts on the natural environment, big and small businesses started to feel the pressure to consider sustainability in their practice.

Have you read?

Is climate inaction a human rights violation, how earth observation from space helps advance climate change research, why is earth day important today.

As the millennium loomed, the Earth Day movement turned its attention to the growing reality of the impending climate crisis with a clear message for world leaders and business: urgent action is needed to address global warming.

It’s a message that is even more relevant today. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that without further immediate action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the world is on course for temperatures 3.2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. This level of warming would be catastrophic for the planet and all life on it, including humans.

The year 2023 was the hottest ever recorded .

The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2024 finds that environmental risks make up half of the top 10 risks over the next 10 years, with extreme weather events, critical change to Earth's systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse being the top three.

Nature is our biggest ally in fighting the climate crisis and has slowed global warming by absorbing 54% of human-related carbon dioxide emissions over the past 10 years. Yet, we are losing animals, marine species, plants, and insects at an unprecedented rate, not seen in 10 million years . Threats from human activity for food production and ocean use, infrastructure, energy and mining endanger around 80% of all threatened or near-threatened species .

Earth Day has become a leading light in the fight to combat climate change and nature loss. As we celebrate its 54th anniversary, we must make use of this truly global movement to act, as citizens and governments, as consumers and businesses, and as individuals and communities. Our survival could well depend on it.

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Guest Essay

The Most Important Thing I Teach My Students Isn’t on the Syllabus

By Frank Bruni

Mr. Bruni is a contributing Opinion writer and the author of the forthcoming book “The Age of Grievance.”

I warn my students. At the start of every semester, on the first day of every course, I confess to certain passions and quirks and tell them to be ready: I’m a stickler for correct grammar, spelling and the like, so if they don’t have it in them to care about and patrol for such errors, they probably won’t end up with the grade they’re after. I want to hear everyone’s voice — I tell them that, too — but I don’t want to hear anybody’s voice so often and so loudly that the other voices don’t have a chance.

And I’m going to repeat one phrase more often than any other: “It’s complicated.” They’ll become familiar with that. They may even become bored with it. I’ll sometimes say it when we’re discussing the roots and branches of a social ill, the motivations of public (and private) actors and a whole lot else, and that’s because I’m standing before them not as an ambassador of certainty or a font of unassailable verities but as an emissary of doubt. I want to give them intelligent questions, not final answers. I want to teach them how much they have to learn — and how much they will always have to learn.

I’d been on the faculty of Duke University and delivering that spiel for more than two years before I realized that each component of it was about the same quality: humility. The grammar-and-spelling bit was about surrendering to an established and easily understood way of doing things that eschewed wild individualism in favor of a common mode of communication. It showed respect for tradition, which is a force that binds us, a folding of the self into a greater whole. The voices bit — well, that’s obvious. It’s a reminder that we share the stages of our communities, our countries, our worlds, with many other actors and should conduct ourselves in a manner that recognizes this fact. And “it’s complicated” is a bulwark against arrogance, absolutism, purity, zeal.

I’d also been delivering that spiel for more than two years before I realized that humility is the antidote to grievance.

We live in an era defined and overwhelmed by grievance — by too many Americans’ obsession with how they’ve been wronged and their insistence on wallowing in ire. This anger reflects a pessimism that previous generations didn’t feel. The ascent of identity politics and the influence of social media, it turned out, were better at inflaming us than uniting us. They promote a self-obsession at odds with community, civility, comity and compromise. It’s a problem of humility.

The Jan. 6 insurrectionists were delusional, frenzied, savage. But above all, they were unhumble. They decided that they held the truth, no matter all the evidence to the contrary. They couldn’t accept that their preference for one presidential candidate over another could possibly put them in the minority — or perhaps a few of them just reasoned that if it did, then everybody else was too misguided to matter. They elevated how they viewed the world and what they wanted over tradition, institutional stability, law, order.

It’s no accident that they were acting in the service of Donald Trump, whose pitch to Americans from the very start was a strikingly — even shockingly — unhumble one. “I alone can fix it,” he proclaimed in his 2016 speech accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for president; and at his inauguration in January of the following year, the word “humbled,” which had been present in the first inaugural remarks of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, was nowhere to be found. Nor were any of its variants. That whole sentiment and politesse were missing, as they had been during a campaign centered on his supposed omniscience.

There are now mini-Trumps aplenty in American politics, but anti-Trumps will be our salvation, and I say that not along partisan or ideological lines. I’m talking about character and how a society holds itself together. It does that with concern for the common good, with respect for the institutions and procedures that protect that and with political leaders who ideally embody those traits or at least promote them.

Those leaders exist. When Charlie Baker, a former Massachusetts governor, was enjoying enormous favor and lofty approval ratings as a Republican in a predominantly Democratic state, he was also stressing the importance of humility. He was fond of quoting Philippians 2:3, which he invoked as a lodestar for his administration. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit,” it says. “Rather, in humility value others above yourself.”

That’s great practical advice for anyone in government, where most meaningful success hinges on teamwork and significant progress requires consensus. Governing, as opposed to demagoguery, is about earning others’ trust and cooperation. Exhibiting a willingness to listen to and to hear them goes a long way toward that.

“Insight and knowledge come from curiosity and humility,” Mr. Baker wrote in a 2022 book, “Results,” coauthored with his chief of staff, Steve Kadish, a Democrat. “Snap judgments — about people or ideas — are fueled by arrogance and conceit. They create blind spots and missed opportunities. Good ideas and interesting ways to accomplish goals in public life exist all over the place if you have the will, the curiosity, and the humility to find them.”

Humble politicians don’t insist on one-size-fits-all answers when those aren’t necessary as a matter of basic rights and fundamental justice. Humble activists don’t either. The campaign for same-sex marriage — one of the most successful social movements of recent decades — showed that progress can be made not by shaming people, not by telling them how awful they are, but by suggesting how much better they could be. Marriage-equality advocates emphasized a brighter future that they wanted to create, not an ugly past that they wanted to litigate. They also wisely assured Americans that gay and lesbian people weren’t trying to explode a cherished institution and upend a system of values, but instead wanted in.

“I don’t want to disparage shouting and demands — everything has its place,” Evan Wolfson, the founder of the pivotal advocacy group Freedom to Marry, told me when we revisited the movement’s philosophy and tactics. At times, he acknowledged, champions of a cause “need to break the silence, we need to push, we need to force.”

“But I used to say, ‘Yes, there’s demanding, but there’s also asking,’” he recalled. “And one is not the enemy of the other. People don’t like being accused, people don’t like being condemned, people don’t like being alienated. It’s a matter of conversation and persuasion.”

That’s consistent with the message delivered by Loretta Ross, a longtime racial justice and human rights advocate, through her teaching, public speaking and writing. Troubled by the frequent targeting and pillorying of people on social media, she urged the practice of calling in rather than calling out those who’ve upset you. “Call-outs make people fearful of being targeted,” she wrote in a guest essay for Times Opinion . “People avoid meaningful conversations when hypervigilant perfectionists point out apparent mistakes, feeding the cannibalistic maw of the cancel culture.” Instead, she advised, engage them. If you believe they need enlightenment, try that route, “without the self-indulgence of drama,” she wrote.

She was preaching humility.

She was also recognizing other people’s right to disagree — to live differently, to talk differently. Pluralism is as much about that as it is about a multiracial, multifaith, multigender splendor. That doesn’t mean a surrender or even a compromise of principles; a person can hold on to those while practicing tolerance, which has been supplanted by grievance. Tolerance shares DNA with respect. It recognizes that other people have rights and inherent value even when we disagree vehemently with them.

We all carry wounds, and some of us carry wounds much graver than others. We confront obstacles, including unjust and senseless ones. We must tend to those wounds. We must push hard at those obstacles. But we mustn’t treat every wound, every obstacle, as some cosmic outrage or mortal danger. We mustn’t lose sight of the struggle, imperfection and randomness of life. We mustn’t overstate our vulnerability and exaggerate our due.

While grievance blows our concerns out of proportion, humility puts them in perspective. While grievance reduces the people with whom we disagree to caricature, humility acknowledges that they’re every bit as complex as we are — with as much of a stake in creating a more perfect union.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Frank Bruni is a professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University, the author of the book "The Age of Grievance" and a contributing Opinion writer. He writes a weekly email newsletter .   Instagram •  Threads •  @ FrankBruni • Facebook

NPR editor Uri Berliner resigns after bombshell expose reveals network’s pervasive left-wing bias

U ri Berliner, the veteran editor and reporter for National Public Radio who was suspended without pay after publishing a lengthy essay denouncing the outlet’s liberal bias, has resigned from the broadcaster.

“I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years,” Berliner wrote on his X social media account on Wednesday.

“I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism.”

Berliner wrote that he “cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay.”

Berliner was referring to Katherine Maher, the chief executive at NPR who has come under fire for a series of “woke” social media posts in which she criticized Hillary Clinton for using the term “boy” and “girl” because it was “erasing language for non-binary people.”

Maher also appeared to justify looting In 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests, saying it was “hard to be mad” about the destruction. In 2018, she wrote a post denouncing then-President Donald Trump as a “racist” before deleting it.

On Tuesday, NPR spokeswoman Isabel Lara said in a statement that Maher “was not working in journalism at the time and was exercising her First Amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen.”

Berliner, a Peabody Award-winning journalist, called out journalistic blind spots around major news events, including the origins of COVID-19, the war in Gaza and the Hunter Biden laptop, in an essay published last Tuesday on Bari Weiss’ online news site the Free Press.

In Berliner’s essay — titled “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust” — Berliner said that among editorial staff at NPR’s Washington, DC, headquarters,  he counted 87 registered Democrats and no Republicans.

He wrote that he presented these findings to his colleagues at a May 2021 all-hands editorial staff meeting.

“When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile,” Berliner wrote. “It was worse. It was met with profound indifference.”

Maher, who took up the role as CEO of NPR in late March, responded to Berliner’s essay by claiming that the veteran journalist was being “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning” to his colleagues.

She accused Berliner of “questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity … based on little more than the recognition of their identity.”

Berliner also called out his bosses at NPR for their refusal to seriously cover the laptop story — which was exclusively broken by The Post.

The laptop contained emails showing that the son of President Biden was engaged in influence-peddling overseas — though NPR and other media outlets declined to aggressively cover the story in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

According to Berliner, senior editors at NPR feared that devoting airtime to the story would help Trump’s re-election chances just weeks before voters cast their ballots.

Berliner wrote that NPR had deteriorated into “an openly polemical news outlet serving a niche audience.”

“The laptop was newsworthy,” Berliner wrote. “But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched.”

Berliner also accused NPR of giving disproportionately more attention to allegations that Trump was colluding with the Russian government to win the 2016 presidential election — only to devote far less resources to Robert Mueller’s findings that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.

After the contents of the laptop proved to be authentic, NPR “could have fessed up to our misjudgment,” Berliner wrote.

“But, like Russia collusion [allegations against Trump that were debunked], we didn’t make the hard choice of transparency.”

Berliner also called out NPR for pushing other left-leaning causes, such as subjecting staffers to “unconscious bias training sessions” in the wake of the May 2020 death of George Floyd.

Employees were ordered to “start talking about race,” he said.

NPR journalists were also told to “keep up to date with current language and style guidance from journalism affinity groups” that were based on racial and ethnic identity, including “Marginalized Genders and Intersex People of Color” (MGIPOC), “NPR Noir” (black employees at NPR) and “Women, Gender-Expansive, and Transgender People in Technology Throughout Public Media.”

According to Berliner, if an NPR journalist’s language “differs from the diktats of those groups,” a “DEI Accountability Committee” would settle the dispute.

Essay on Save Soil

Students are often asked to write an essay on Save Soil in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Save Soil

Introduction.

Soil is a vital part of our environment. It supports plant life, which provides us with food, oxygen, and more.

Soil Erosion

Soil erosion is a major issue. It happens when wind or water carry away the top layer of soil. This can lead to less fertile land.

Importance of Saving Soil

Saving soil is crucial. It helps maintain biodiversity, supports agriculture and fights climate change.

Ways to Save Soil

We can save soil by reducing deforestation, practicing sustainable farming, and controlling pollution. These actions will ensure healthy soil for future generations.

Also check:

• Paragraph on Save Soil

250 Words Essay on Save Soil

Soil, an indispensable component of our ecosystem, plays a pivotal role in maintaining the planet’s ecological balance. Despite its crucial role, soil degradation is a growing concern, demanding immediate attention and action.

The Importance of Soil

Soil is the foundation of agriculture, facilitating the growth of plants which provide us food, fiber, medicinal plants, and other essentials. It acts as a natural filter, purifying water before it reaches groundwater reserves. Moreover, soil sequesters carbon, helping mitigate climate change.

Threats to Soil

Various anthropogenic activities, including deforestation, industrialization, and unsustainable farming practices, have accelerated soil erosion and degradation. These activities disrupt the soil’s natural structure, leading to loss of fertility and biodiversity.

Soil Conservation

Effective soil conservation strategies are a necessity. Sustainable farming practices like crop rotation, contour ploughing, and agroforestry can be instrumental in preserving soil health. Policies promoting responsible land use and discouraging deforestation can also contribute significantly.

Role of Technology

Emerging technologies can aid in soil conservation. Satellite imagery and AI can help monitor soil health, predict erosion patterns, and guide sustainable land use. These technologies can empower farmers, policymakers, and researchers to make informed decisions.

Soil conservation is not just an environmental concern, but a matter of global food security and climate change mitigation. It is high time we acknowledge the importance of soil and take collective action to save it. After all, the health of soil is directly linked to the health of our planet and its inhabitants.

500 Words Essay on Save Soil

Soil, the thin layer of material covering our planet’s surface, plays a crucial role in sustaining life on Earth. It is a complex ecosystem that supports plant growth, regulates water flow, and acts as a habitat for billions of organisms. However, soil degradation, primarily caused by human activities, is threatening this vital resource. The need to save soil is more pressing than ever before.

Soil is a cornerstone of biodiversity, serving as a home to a myriad of organisms, from bacteria and fungi to insects and small mammals. These organisms contribute to the nutrient cycle, breaking down organic matter into nutrients that plants can absorb. In turn, these plants provide food and oxygen for animals and humans. Soil also plays a critical role in climate regulation. It stores carbon, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and mitigating climate change.

Despite its importance, soil is under threat from various human activities. Industrial agriculture, deforestation, and urbanization are leading causes of soil degradation. These practices strip the soil of its nutrients, disrupt its structure, and lead to erosion. Moreover, the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can harm the soil’s microbiome, reducing its fertility and resilience.

Soil Conservation Strategies

To save soil, it is essential to implement sustainable land management practices. These include crop rotation, which helps maintain soil fertility by alternating the types of crops grown in a particular area, reducing the risk of pest and disease outbreaks. Cover cropping is another effective strategy; it prevents soil erosion, improves soil health, and enhances water retention.

Moreover, reducing the use of harmful chemicals in agriculture and promoting organic farming can significantly improve soil health. Organic farming encourages biodiversity, improves soil structure, and enhances its ability to retain water and nutrients.

Role of Education and Policy

Education plays a crucial role in soil conservation. By raising awareness about the importance of soil and the threats it faces, we can encourage more sustainable practices. In addition, policy interventions are needed to promote soil-friendly practices. Governments should incentivize sustainable farming and land use practices, and penalize those that contribute to soil degradation.

Soil is not just dirt beneath our feet; it’s a living, breathing ecosystem that sustains life on Earth. Our survival depends on its health. Therefore, saving soil should be a global priority. By adopting sustainable practices, educating people about the importance of soil, and implementing soil-friendly policies, we can ensure that this precious resource continues to support life for generations to come.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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Navel Gazing

John dickerson’s notebooks: remembering george and defending the morning.

 Easing into the day, remembering his dog George, feeling absences in your bones, and more are explored in this week’s audio essay from John Dickerson.

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Episode Notes

In this week’s essay, John dives deep into the loss of his beloved dog, George, the essayist’s dilemma, the comfort of quiet mornings, and more.

Notebook Entries:

Notebook 75, page 5. September 5, 2021

I go to the morning alone.

Notebook 75, page 6. September 6, 2021

Phantom nails on the stairs

References:

“ Every Dog Is a Rescue Dog ” by John Dickerson for The Atlantic

“ Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds ” by Miho Nagasawa et.al for Science

Haikus by Jennifer Gurney

“ Which Pet Will Make You Happiest? ” by Arthur C. Brooks for The Atlantic

“ The Family Dog Is in Sync With Your Kids ” by Gretchen Reynolds for The New York Times

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.

Email us at [email protected]

Want to listen to Navel Gazing uninterrupted? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock ad-free listening to Navel Gazing and all your other favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/navelgazingplus to get access wherever you listen.

About the Show

Political Gabfest host John Dickerson has been a journalist for more than three decades, reporting about presidential campaigns, political scandals, and the evolving state of our democracy. Along the way, he’s also been recording his observations in notebooks he has carried in his back pocket. He has captured his thoughts about life, parenthood, death, friendship, writing, God, to-do lists, and more. On the Navel Gazing podcast, John Dickerson invites you to join him in figuring out what these 30 years of notebooks mean: sorting out what makes a life—or a day in a life—noteworthy.

John Dickerson is host of CBS News Prime Time With John Dickerson , co-host of the Slate Political Gabfest, host of the Whistlestop podcast, and author of The Hardest Job in the World .