Healthy Soil, Healthy Plants, Healthy Animals, Healthy Humans: Are They All One Great Subject?.

Based on his experience Sir Albert Howard made a compelling case in 1945 for a close correlation between soil health and human health, arguing that a way had already been “blazed” for “treating the whole problem of health in soil, plant, animal, and man as one great subject, calling for a boldly revised point of view and entirely fresh investigations.” (The Soil and Health, p.11)  

 However, given the successful short-term results of the “N-P-K mentality” agriculture, (as Howard called the “modern” agriculture proposed by Justus von Liebig in 1840), his “calling” has been largely ignored.  As our healthcare spending has risen from a little over 5% of GDP in 1960 to over 18% in 2014, an increasing number of healthcare professionals are proposing that a new healthcare paradigm is becoming critical, one that focuses on keeping people healthy, rather than simply “keeping sick people alive.” 

In our new era of interest in soil health, doing the peer-reviewed research to determine whether there indeed is a connection between soil health and human health, would seem to be an appropriate “fresh investigation” for the soil sciences to address ---delayed as it has been