Restoring the Origin.

"Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal" (Aldo Leopold, 1949).

Soil health refers to the continuous ability of soil to sustain biologic productivity, air and water quality and contribute to human, plant and animal health. Then, loss of the ability to produce food, water, plants, and animals, is related to the soil degradation process, which is the result of factors arising from the technologies used on such soil.

For the early inhabitants of Mesoamerica, soil represented the underworld which, upon contact with the sky, gave origin to all things on earth. Soil is the maternal womb. The crisis in soil health is the biggest chronic disaster of the humanity.

Various types of soil degradation were assessed (biological, physical and chemical) in the farming valley and forest mountains of Zapopan, México. Once the relevance of each had been determined, as related to the affected area, we considered which type was associated to the loss of soil health as calculated by the reduction in corn yield and green water. Forty-six samples were taken, both of soil and of corn yield, and evaluation on eight runoff-soil loss plots and infiltrometer. Correlation analysis and regression analysis were used.

Of all types of degradation, exchangeable aluminum resulting from the soil’s chemical degradation was the one that showed a higher correlation (-0.25) with corn yield.

Corn yield is affected starting at 1.0 meq. of aluminum/100g. which is equivalent to a pH value of 4.7; thus, we can consider that the presence of this metal as of such values is an indicator of the loss of health soil.

The average reduction in corn yield was 1.3 tons due to this effect associated to the loss of health soil. The loss of green water by compaction, was between 12-43%.

It is important to analyze the subject of food production and water availability linked to human welfare as a service of the ecosystem, and that food supply depends on a healthy soil.  Soils have suffered degradation due to the technologies being used and the lack of proper management to preserve health soil, a factor which threatens the stability of food supplies as well as human health.

Having shown that nitrogenous chemical fertilizers and the use of fire result in soil degradation which in turns leads to a reduction in food production, the question we must ask is the following:

How can we restore soil health, the origin to all things on Earth, in a way that will allow us to benefit from soil’s basic service to humanity? Where is the technology for self-renewal?

Monitoring over 20 years to know the self-renewal of soil organic matter (SOM), show a change of 2.06 to 3.91% SOM, the restoration is the result of the vegetable succession process. The question is how design a technology to do fast a vegetable succession in farm lands?