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Research

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• An antibiotic present in soil may prove effective against antibiotic-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis — the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis, according to a study published in Nature Communications

• Soil is truly ‘the poor man’s [sic] rainforest’ – 13 new species of Myriapoda discovered in Estonian soils, and 16 new ‘giant viruses’ discovered in Massachusetts, and a chance soil sampling uncovers an organism so different to any other life form to have its own supra-kingdom, hemmastigotes

• Yet again the properties of soil bacteria create hopes for climate change mitigation – this time through nitrous dioxide sequestration

• An invasive earthworm species is changing the soils across the US

• Changes in climate influence the make-up of soil biota in the long term

• A new study of the role microbial communities play on the leaves of plants suggests that fertilizing crops may make them more susceptible to disease.

• Pesticides discovered to have serious longevity in soils, raising concerns about their combined effects on e.g. soil biota. ”The study "Pesticide residues in European agricultural soils: a hidden reality unfolded" concluded that 83% of said samples contained pesticide residues (76 different types of compounds). Some 58% of that percentage were mixes of pesticides, as opposed to 25% which came from a single type of substance. Glyphosate, DDT (banned since the 1970s) and broad-spectrum fungicides were the main compounds detected.”

• Evidence of falling fertility of Irish soils

• New findings relevant to the dream of soil carbon storage. “Marc Kramer, an associate professor of environmental chemistry at WSU Vancouver, drew on new data from soils around the world to describe how water dissolves organic carbon and takes it deep into the soil (…) Scientists still need to find a way to take advantage of this finding and move some of the atmosphere’s extra carbon underground, but Kramer says the soils can easily retain more.”

 

Soils in the news

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• Farmers in Yorkshire are cooperating with a water company piloting a cover crop growing scheme to improve water quality

• An interesting insight into debates in the UK farming community about payment for provision of public goods such as soil health, which is said to replace CAP after Brexit

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Editorials, blogs and opinion

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• A fascinating interview with Prof. Kinkel who is heading the international Agricultural Microbiomes Project, which aims to collect genetic data on life in soil from every continent except Antarctica. “Kinkel is confident that, within a few years, science will know enough about managing microbes to help farmers grow better crops, reduce the environmental effects of farming, and perhaps help crops survive a changing climate.”

• The silent privatisation of land in the UK – since 1979 10% of UK land has passed into private hands (and this is on top of already huge private land ownership). “Land privatisation is also intimately linked to the declining capacity of the public sector, especially the local public sector, to continue to provide many of the basic social and environmental infrastructures that it has done historically.”

• Regenerative farming – on the land and in the sea. This blog makes a very interesting connection between farming land, farming appropriate marine species (hint: not salmon) and improving global climate

• An excellent comprehensive overview of the ongoing debate around soils, ruminants, and veganism and climate change; in other words, the question of the role of livestock (and regenerative agriculture) in a climate-friendly and soil-friendly food system.

• Keith Bowers writes in praise of ecological restoration from a market perspective

• The benefits to ecologies and societies through agroforestry in Tajikistan

• An interesting interview on the challenge plastics pose to soils, and on the scale of our ignorance of the magnitude of the problem and of its potential effects

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Resources

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• Living Soil, a 60-minute documentary about soil health featuring innovative farmers and soil health experts from throughout the U.S. The film is freely available to download and stream at

• A great review of the movie The Land Beneath Our Feet, produced by Gregg Mitman and Sarita Siegel (University of Wisconsin-Madison and Alchemy Films), is an in-depth ethnographic portrayal of processes of land grabbing and dispossession of rural communities in Liberia