“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
Wendell Berry
SOIL HEALTH IS DEFINED AS THE CONTINUED CAPACITY OF SOIL TO FUNCTION AS A VITAL LIVING ECOSYSTEM THAT SUSTAINS PLANTS, ANIMALS, AND HUMANS.
NRCS
Viewing soil as a living ecosystem reflects a fundamental shift in the way we care for New Mexico’s working lands. Rather than treating soil as an inert growing medium, we need to foster the living organisms in the soil and consider their basic necessities – food, shelter, and water. Healthy soil is teaming with billions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that are engaged in the cycling of essential nutrients and even communicate with plants through their root systems. Maintaining this intricate relationship is critical for the wellbeing of all life on earth.
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