Some Thoughts from Rocks for Crops Conference,
Brasilia, Brazil, November 2004
...Recently the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail (October 12, 2004) listed the world's six big problems. The first listed was food, the shortage to over a billion people. The second was water and that 4 billion people face water quality and quantity problems. The Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2004, Wangari Maathai from Kenya, writes in the Manchester Guardian Weekly, November 12, 2004, about the problems of nutrition and soil erosion and the need to plant more trees. The World Watch Institute in their Journal, vol. 17, no. 5, 2004, stressed the problems of world population, agriculture and malnutrition. One could go on!
It has been known for some time that soil quality, food quality, is a complex subject. It is interesting to reflect on the history of agriculture as with Egypt and the importance of Nile floods that added mud and nutrients. The soil nutrient system involves a large (at least half the periodic table) array of chemical elements, the need for carbon, the need for a complex array of microorganisms and minerals, which hold water. As has been shown in golf courses in the U.K., the use of pesticides, biocides, on soil reduces the ability of the soil to hold water! From the study of volcanic areas we know how long it takes to form good soil as with Hawaii and we also know that some soil is best for food and some for forests and today, for bio-fuels such as ethanol.
...It is interesting to contemplate that water can be mineralized with appropriate rocks and pumped to the land using wind power (zero pollution!).
A very important aspect of soil deterioration is dust production. In many parts of the world the quantity of dust is huge today, particularly due to burning to clear land for agriculture. Dust is dominated by fine particles, clay minerals, key components in the ability of soil to hold water. Dust erosion can be reduced by careful tree planting. But if you live near active volcanoes, particularly andesite volcanoes, their dust can be remarkable in increasing soil productivity. For example, in parts of the west of U.S.A. during recent eruptions, wheat production doubled after the dust was deposited. We should use the river sediments in such regions for soil remediation...
In fact, we should make better use of rocks and rock related materials, from ground basaltic and andesitic rocks to phosphate rocks to processed rocks and rock wastes such as fly ash to remineralize our soils to prevent great disasters and have a better future for the coming generations.
With regard to security I always remember the words of Montagne, 1581, when he said the most universal quality is diversity. And having been born on a farm with great diversity, I know that diversity is security. Giant monoculture farms are not secure!
Conclusion:
I think that certain conclusions were obvious at our meeting. First soil and its bioproductivity is very complex and to attack soil-food problems we need teams with expertise (e.g. agrogeologists, soil scientists, geochemists, mineralogists, climatologists, cultivation technologists and particularly economists)...
Finally, I always remember the words of Sir Krispin Tickell, former U.K. Ambassador to the UN. In 1993, he wrote "I was recently asked if I was an optimist or a pessimist. The best answer was given by someone else. He said that he had optimism of the intellect but pessimism of the will. In short, we have most of the means for coping with problems we face, but are distinctly short on our readiness to use them. It is never easy to bring the long term into the short term. Our leaders, whether in politics or business, rarely have a time horizon of more than five years."
We must plan for the needs of future generations and there is no generation that food and water needs are not a very high priority. All people must be educated to understand our life support systems and we must note that as with most species on our planet the female is more intelligent than the male. In our work on soils and foods, we must work with schools at all levels. Children are wonderful observers of nature and they know they will be here in 50 years' time.
London, Ontario, Canada - November 2004.
