Recently I came across this article, which has been getting a lot of attention on social media. I would like to bring to light its inconsistencies and faults.
'Creative work in being stewards of the land and co-creators of living soil is not an “input” into a food system, but the most important output of good farming,' writes Shiva. (Public domain)
We are made up of the same five elements — earth, water, fire, air and space — that constitute the Universe. [We’re already off to a bad start. Why bring up a medieval cosmology here? Isn’t matter and energy in spacetime good enough?] We are the soil. We are the earth. What we do to the soil, we do to ourselves. [This is the basic premise of the article and its title. The way we treat soil is linked to our health.] And it is no accident that the words “humus” and “humans” have the same roots. [This is interesting! The word “humus” comes from Latin, for earth or soil, from Indo European *dhghem—“earth”. Human, comes from Latin humanus, relating to human things, and seems to relate to the word homo, which interestingly might come from the same root, but with the sense of earthling; from earth.]
This ecological truth is forgotten in the dominant paradigm because it is based on eco-apartheid, the false idea that we are separate and independent of the earth and also because it defines soil as dead matter.
[I would like to know more about this so-called ecoapartheid. The idea of soil being considered dead is a strawman argument—like many specialists in agriculture know, it is very hard indeed to kill soil and impractical. As is explained in this article , the argument of dead soil is very common, but is unscientific and ignores how impractical it is to begin with. It also flies in the face of agricultural knowledge.] If soil is dead to begin with, human action cannot destroy its life.
[A farmer who thinks soil is dead is an ignorant farmer.] It can only “improve” the soil with chemical fertilisers.
[Strawman. Soil is not dead, it’s hard to kill. We can certainly make it easier for plants to grow in it however.] And if we are the masters and conquerors of the soil, we determine the fate of the soil. Soil cannot determine our fate.
[The strawman argument continues. Not everybody thinks that soil is dead, but some who do believe agriculture kills it. People, regardless of their use of chemicals, must be able to put the soil to productive use if they want to make food. If soil determines our fate, we’ve picked inadequate soil or failed to approach growing food on it intelligently. This is not about dead soil or not.]
"The claim that the Green Revolution or genetic engineering feeds the world is false. [And again, another strawman argument. The idea that one single technology is the cure to all problems in the world is obviously impractical. Is organic the only solution? Not likely, for the same reasons. Like most intelligent approaches to complex issues, the answer relies on more than one solution.] Intrinsic to these technologies are monocultures based on chemical inputs, a recipe for killing the life of the soil." [Again with the death of the soil! Soil is hard to kill. First Vandana says that thinking that the assumption that soil is dead is false, then states that monoculture kills soil. Is it dead or not then? The author could look for more accurate ways of describing the effects of these chemicals too. On the other hand, it is true that monoculture systems have flaws. As other systems do too. The problem lies in picking the perfect context for a particular method of agriculture.]
History, however, is witness to the fact that the fate of societies and civilisations is intimately connected to how we treat the soil [For this very reason, we can hope that the collective knowledge of disasters and successes can further improve our current techniques, organic or not. Side question: was the Irish Potato Famine caused by chemicals, or just monoculture?] — do we relate to the soil through the Law of Return or through the Law of Exploitation and Extraction. [I admit that Vandana brings a fair ethical point about our relationship to the environment, where humanity must find a way of recycling its products back into the food chain and reduce the environmental impact. It is true that a lot of practices are not long-term sustainable, but
1: this is an area of constant research and development worthy of looking to, and
2: switching to preindustrial techniques (which might be what Vandana advocates), is not a serious solution either considering the number of people on Earth that need food and current land constraints.]
The Law of Return — of giving back — has ensured that societies create and maintain fertile soil and can be supported by living soil over thousands of years. [In terms of simple thermodynamics, the law of return is an equal input of energy into a system as the amount taken from it. In terms of soil, it means that the necessary nutrients that plants take from the soil be replenished for the next crop, which is what we do anyway. What we might be missing, which Vandana has so far not mentioned at all is the petrochemical industry.] The Law of Exploitation — of taking without giving back — has led to the collapse of civilisations. [Yes. And so have climate change, drought, war, pests, bad economics. Sometimes nature takes back regardless of whether you use chemicals in the soil or not.]
Contemporary societies across the world stand on the verge of collapse as soils are eroded, degraded, poisoned, buried under concrete and deprived of life. [If societies worldwide are about to collapse, it wouldn’t be because we are covering soil under concrete. Cities are high-density areas of human settlement, meaning that while in a spread-out fashion we might cover much more soil under concrete and roads, we can save more land for good use by moving in close to each other. And yes, yes, yes, industrial agriculture at its worst has detrimental effects on the environment, but not all of these effects are part of the industry she talks about. Some, for instance, are related to soon-to-be-obsolete industries such as coal-based energy and the automotive industry.] Industrial agriculture, based on a mechanistic paradigm and use of fossil fuels has created ignorance and blindness to the living processes that create a living soil. [This ignorance, apparently, is shared by certain activists who write that we are the soil and we are killing it. It shows poor understanding of the biology of the soil. Yes, schools should inculcate children on the composition of soil and all the microorganisms living in it, it is important. And again, YES, fossil fuel dependency is an issue. It would be great to commercialise renewable alternatives. This should not be a critique of a “mechanistic paradigm” but rather energy resources. Turning mechanism into a dirty word betrays ignorance: there is a large number of people on Earth. We want to feed them all. Mechanisms are designed to reduce waste and increase productivity. Avoiding these “paradigms” is like saying that we should not strive to be efficient. Why would one not want to be efficient? Should we be even more wasteful?] Instead of focusing on the Soil Food Web, it has been obsessed with external inputs of chemical fertilisers — what Sir Albert Howard called the NPK mentality. Biology and life have been replaced with chemistry. [Another misleading statement. A good biologist, and particularly botanologists worth their salt will assert that plants require more than just Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorous; that certain plants need certain minerals, and that NPK is outdated. Biology has not been replaced by chemistry, what is this nonsense? Proper understanding of both is needed. And of course certain plants grow on only certain soils.]
External inputs and mechanisation are imperative for monocultures. [Scary word mechanisation is scary. Unlike abused immigrant farmers picking strawberries by hand and breaking their backs, that is familiar and nice.] By exposing the soil to wind, sun and rain, monocultures expose the soil to erosion by wind and water. [Again, another strawman argument. Agriculture is a science that learns from past mistakes. No-tilling is actually practiced in response to soil runoff. Vandana implies that a whole science and a whole community of people do not adapt to changing circumstances to suit environmental and production needs. She also implies that other methods of agriculture are completely blame-free from exposing soil to erosion, therefore presenting the best of one side and the absolute worst from the other.]
Soils with low organic matter are also most easily eroded, since organic matter creates, aggregates and binds the soil. [Yes. And this is why one replenishes soils. Or grows plants in it. Or chooses not to till it.]
Soil is being lost at 10 to 40 times the rate at which it can be replenished naturally. This implies 30 per cent less food over the next 20-50 years. [This is a serious issue worth looking at more in the future. I would like sources for this claim. Is this globally? Incidentally, is this only in agricultural areas, or in general, as in through droughts and climate change? Does moving away from mechanistic agriculture to other methods necessarily imply that soil loss will decrease? Does mechanistic agriculture present workarounds to preserve soil integrity?] Soil erosion washes away soil nutrients. A tonne of top soil averages 1-6 kg of nitrogen, 1-3 kg of phosphorous, 2-30 kg of potassium, whereas soil in eroded land has only 0.1-0.5 per cent nitrogen. [Vandana just compared kg of substances per tonne of soil, with percentages in soil. These numbers mean nothing by themselves. If it means less, then how much less?] The cost of these nutrient losses are $20 billion annually. [What does this number mean, compared to loss by other causes?]
"Soil, not oil, holds the future for humanity. [And the soil’s future relies on the sun, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, other minerals, water, and a plethora of biological processes.] The oil-based, fossil fuel intensive, chemical intensive, industrial agriculture has unleashed three processes which are killing the soil, and hence impacting our future." [This again.]
Fertile soils contain 100 tonnes of organic matter per ha. [I don’t understand this number, because an hectare is a unit of area, and does not tell me the volume of soil in that area.] Reduction of soil organic matter by 1.4-0.9 per cent lowers yield potential by 50 per cent. [Organic fertilisers exists for a reason.] Chemical monocultures also make soils more vulnerable to drought and further contribute to food insecurity. [This is a restatement of the previous paragraph. Is monoculture or polyculture really the one thing to blame? It is the tilling of land, which many have abandoned. It is climate change, which changes weather patterns. It is soil mismanagement. (Remember you said we must not control soil? Let it dry then and lose organic matter!)]
Further, eroded soils and soils without organic matter absorb 10 to 300 mm less water per ha per year from rainfall. This represents 7 to 44 per cent decrease in water availability for food production, contributing to a decline in biological productivity from 10-25 per cent. [Answer: put organic matter into it.]
No technology can claim to feed the world while it destroys the life in the soil by failing to feed it on the basis of the Law of Return. [Misleading. If we have designated a plot of land to grow food, our concern should be that it grows that food, and that the soil does not run off. And that we do not prevent future growth by putting toxins in it, which I infer is what Vandana implies, even if considerable research goes into finding eco-friendlier ways of managing soil.] This is why the claim that the Green Revolution or genetic engineering feeds the world is false. [A false claim, that one technology is the silver bullet to all problems, is false because while it actually helps feed people because Vandana feels that it somehow is not being replenished before we grow more. Or something like that? This straw man argument is dragging on... More meaningful would be to advocate for renewable alternatives to such industrial methods, right?] Intrinsic to these technologies are monocultures based on chemical inputs, a recipe for killing the life of the soil and accelerating soil erosion and degradation. [I think I read this same sentence twice before already.] Degraded and dead soils, soils without organic matter, soils without soil organisms, soils with no water holding capacity, create famines and a food crisis, they do not create food security. [Soil degradation is serious. It must be avoided, for it is wasteful and hard to fix. And any technology that can hopefully reverse this must be looked at seriously. Vandana: please!]
This is especially true in times of climate change. [Except when it isn’t true, such as previously unusable soils becoming fertile for food growth. Northern Canada and Siberia. Not that I think this is good, but it means that not all climate change “kills soils”.] Not only is industrial agriculture responsible for 40 per cent of the Green House gases contributing to climate change, it is also more vulnerable to it. [YES!!!! Thank you for this important point. This is a pressing issue. And so is the percentage of carbon emissions due to concrete production, coal and petrol, and all sorts of other processes. Would Vandana support me if I went about installing solar panels and batteries on all the machinery used to grow crops, even the tractors and tillers? And solar panels on the factories creating the chemicals used to sustain high growth in soil?]
Soils with organic matter are more resilient to drought and climate extremes.
[This is another repeated sentence. My attention span is not that short.] And increasing organic matter production through biodiversity intensive systems, which are in effect photosynthesis intensive systems is the most effective way to get the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, into the plants, and then into the soil through the Law of Return.
[Wait wait hold up! Biodiverse or not, photosynthesis still will happen where there are plants. Do you want to know what part of the planet might possibly best represent the Law of Return? The Midwest. NASA used fluorescent light from satellite imagery to create a detailed map of world photosynthetic levels and discovered that while tropical rainforests are the most productive year-round, the bloody Midwest, during the north’s harvesting season, is the brightest spot on earth, everything else paling in comparison.]
Soil, not oil, holds the future for humanity. [Repeat this mantra with me, again. Yes, oil is a primitive energy source, and if aliens saw us, they’d say we are very primitive, burning dead plants as a source of fuel. Come on already, Vandana, let’s keep the best of both worlds: mechanisation and efficiency, with sustainable resources!] The oil-based, fossil fuel intensive, chemical intensive, industrial agriculture has unleashed three processes which are killing the soil, and hence impacting our future. [This sentence was lifted verbatim from a couple paragraphs above. Notice how she only lists two things below.]
Firstly, industrial agriculture destroys living soils through monocultures and chemicals. [Looking at this closely with the previous paragraph, it reads like: We are killing the soil in three ways. The first way is by killing it (with monoculture and chemicals). Circular argument.] Second, an oil-based paradigm intensifies fossil fuel inputs and creates a false measure of productivity which presents an unproductive system as productive. [Let’s follow the logic here, statement by statement.
A: Fossil fuels are used.
B: Fossil fuel emissions go up.
So far this is logical.
C: This system creates a lot of food because of the energy we get out of nonrenewables allows us to.
D: High food production means systems are productive.
E: This system is not actually productive, because... it is not?
Merriam Webster says that unproductive means “producing inferior or only a small amount”, or “producing no results”.
So, these are possibilities:
1—Producing a lot of food, but undercounting it and thus perceiving inefficiency? I would argue this based on the (unrelated to this article) habit that people waste a lot of food.
2—We are actually producing very little food considering the amount of fossil fuels that go into making it. This is interesting, because as much as I’d love to see no more fossil fuels used, we could say that as long as we are using them, we might as well be as efficient and unwasteful as possible. So in effect, we are indeed presenting an “unproductive” system as productive.
3—Vandana is making a logical fallacy and I am trying my best to make sense of it and put it into a wider context.]
The trick lies in reducing creative productive work to “labour “ as a commodity, counting people as labour as an “input”, and not counting fossil fuels as an input.
[Hard work in agriculture should be respected and paid its due. If this is commodifying it, then let it be. A lot of immigrants in the United States take up farming and it pays extremely low. I don’t know what point Vandana is trying to make. Fossil fuels are indeed counted as inputs. Where did she get the idea that they are not? For further info on fossil fuels in agri-industry, click here. This is worthy of examining.] Intensive fossil fuel use translates into more the 300 “energy slaves” that work invisibly behind each worker on fossil fuel intensive industrial farms.
[What are these quote-unquote energy slaves? Since this article was about chemicals in the soil and I perceive this part to stray from Vandana’s central argument, let’s take the example of the chemical industry, from which farmers buy products. Where do these chemical industries get their products from, and who is a slave in the process? Very important question to look into, if it’s true; unfortunately it’s one sentence in what could have been a meaningful paragraph.]
People as an input means the less people on the land, the more “productive” agriculture becomes. [The less people working on anything, the more people can pursue bigger ideas and help others. What is your point, Vandana?] Farmers are destroyed, rural economies are destroyed, the land is emptied of people and filled with toxics. [This might be a bit luddite and hints at the idea that the farmers should remain confined to the land, that there must be more people working on preindustrial farmlands all day long. Toxics is not really a word in any case and by confusing all chemicals with toxic substances, the author shows weak understanding.] The creative work of farmers as custodians and renewers of soil and biodiversity is replaced by deadly chemicals. [I do not understand why there seems to be no middle ground, where farmers can use the latest knowledge, technology and experience from a worldwide pool of people to be the guardians of soil and biodiversity they want to be. This is a fallacy of the excluded middle.]
Creative work in being stewards of the land and co-creators of living soil is not an “input” into a food system, but the most important output of good farming. [The most important output of good farming is good food. Followed very closely by an intelligent and careful relationship with the environment. This talk of input and output hardly makes any sense. While it would be great that people bought a product such as a farmer intelligently managing the soil (business idea anyone?? A bit like Eco-Insurance or something?), what does it mean that it is not an input? What is then?] It cannot be reduced to “labour” as a commodity. [What is it then? If people want to pay for food, how is it not labour? What if a farmer decides to just grow food at his whim and without regards to what people around him/her need? “Nah man, I don’t work as a commodity. I don’t feel like making food today.” People need food, and the market will make sure it comes from somewhere, regardless of meaningless platitudes like “we cannot reduce it to a commodity”] Land, too, is not a commodity. [I agree that owning a piece of planet Earth is iffy and strange, but this is a philosophical point, and most human beings indeed treat land as a commodity. Saying it is not is like saying that people don’t treat it like so.] Creating, conserving, rejuvenating, fertile and living soil is the most important objective of civilisation. It is a regenerative output. [Civilisation 101: Learn the laws of thermodynamics.]
Third, displaced farmers flood cities.
[And displaced factory workers flooded suburbs once.] This is not a natural or inevitable phenomenon.
[Yes, and cities need better ways of integrating incoming people. It is a serious problem.] It is part of the design of industrial agriculture. The explosion of cities buries fertile soil under concrete.
[Cities are some of the most dense settlements on Earth. What would a person who obviously wants the least amount of concrete burying good soil want? Cities.] The equivalent of 30 football fields are consumed by cement and concrete every minute.
[I just realised that this is maybe an American problem. In other countries, cities are planned so that most important things are at reach. In the United States though, people have been living in sparse settlements so long that they assume it’s normal to build and build in the middle of nowhere.]
The Save our Soils (SOS) movement, of which I am a patron, has been started by many organisations including FAO, IFOAM, Nature and More, to wake humanity to the soil emergency, which is also a human emergency. [That is commendable. The author, however, should assume the role of responsibility if she really is patron of SOS. She should know what she is talking about, these are no light matters and the way she made her case in this article is iffy.]
We need to measure human progress not on the basis of how much cement buried the soil
[Human progress is not measured that way, firstly. Roads and indoor floors are places where cement goes, but on the field? With crops? How is this even related to your point, Vandana?], but how much soil was reclaimed and liberated.
[This is a good start, but no, not the soil liberation, but soil detoxification, and our ability to prevent soil runoff. And our ability to use technology wisely to keep feeding what will become 10 billion people. Not this stupid idea that concrete should be removed, maybe from inner city parts, to grow food in. That urban soil needs cleaning up beforehand anyway, with all the lead in it. THAT’S SERIOUS STUFF. This article misses great opportunities to make points like that.] This is what “saugandh mujhe is mitti ki” should mean. Living seeds and living soils are the foundation of living and lasting societies.
[I just feel like I read a bunch of nothing, with fallacies used as icing. There is so much important stuff to talk about, and this article does little to address these issues.]
© 2014 Asian Age
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is author of numerous books including,
Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis;
Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply;
Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; and
Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.
is the 
