It’s a growing concern that there are already Hundreds of Governments that are declaring Climate Crisis as a Global emergency and it’s even more frightening to know the current state of our planet: The UN reports the Earth’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years, according to the Scientific American.
Over the last 150 years, nearly half of the whole planet’s topsoil has disappeared and apparently, to generate three centimeters of topsoil, it would take 1,000 years.
According to a senior UN official, if these rates of degradation continue, then we could face Earth without topsoil in 60 years.
What does this mean for us? Well, 95% of our planet’s food supply depends on the topsoil it is highly critical to producing food. Experts urge massive changes in our agriculture and city planning or we could already be facing a terrible future.
“Soils are the basis of life,” said Semedo, FAO’s deputy director-general of natural resources. “Ninety-five percent of our food comes from the soil.”
What is the cause of the loss of topsoil? Intensive farming and other farming practices, like over-tilling, synthetic chemical use and lack of cover crops.
“We are losing 30 soccer fields of soil every minute, mostly due to intensive farming,” Volkert Engelsman, an activist with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements told the forum at the FAO’s headquarters in Rome.
In other countries, farmers are already changing their strategy to not plowing or tilling the land and are switching to putting more organic matter in the soil.
What do you think of this story? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
