The Dirt On Healthy Soils

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013, Nadine Azzu, FAO  "The Youth Guide to Biodiversity" 1st Edition (Chapter 5) Youth and United Nations Global Alliance. Reproduced with permission.

Chapter 5. Verbatim.

Enhancing the provision of ecosystem services can result from a collective effort. For example, creating and maintaining healthy soil in an agro-ecosystem requires farmers and worms to work together. 

Small organisms such as worms burrow through the soil and make it porous, so water can seep through, reaching the roots of plants. Worms also digest old leaves and plant material, recycling them into nutrients that nourish existing plants. 

In doing so, worms provide a very important ecosystem service – but they can’t provide this service unless there is organic matter (old leaves and plant material) available. Humans also play a role in ensuring that soil is kept healthy and fertile.

Farmers must decide carefully about which types of farming practices they use, so that the environment continues to provide ecosystem services. In an agro-ecosystem such as a crop field, farmers’ practices such as mulching, leaving organic matter on the ground instead of collecting and disposing of it, provide the worms with the organic matter they will transform into nutrients to feed the farmers’ crops.