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 In the most productive ecosystems, like old growth forests, a tablespoon of soil can contain 40,000 species of plants and animals. A healthy garden soil will have around 10,000 and perhaps billions of individuals. And all that biomass can amount to as much as 40 tons per acre of stored carbon. Unfortunately, the past 100 years of agriculture has converted much of that carbon into carbon dioxide, thereby contributing to the greenhouse effect and climate instability. In the next 10 years we need to reverse that trend and return the soil to its evolutionary role in the carbon cycle.
In effect, what we really need to be growing in the garden is soil. In less than 50 years we have lost a third of the topsoil. We continue to lose it at a rate that is about 17 times faster than it can be replenished. What remains is seriously degraded. "The rolling, crawling life of bacteria, fungi, nematodes and protozoa are burned out with herbicides, pesticides and relentless mono-cropping". Perhaps in the near future farmers will be paid for the amount of carbon sequestered and the amount of water retained and filtered. May be, the number of earthworms and other soil organisms will be a part of the herds we tend. But that will require significant advances in knowledge. Soils are complex systems of unidentified communities and individuals engaged in unknown ecological processes. We have a lot to learn about what's good for the planet.
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