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Submitted to: Advances in Plants and Agriculture Journal
Publication Type: Review Article Publication Acceptance Date: 4/7/2016 Publication Date: 4/13/2016 Citation: Jabro, J.D. 2016. Caring for soil improves human health. Advances in Plants and Agriculture Journal. 3(3): 00098. doi:10.15406/apar.2016.03.00098. Interpretive Summary: We rely on soils every day, to grow plants that we use for food, to build our shelters, to make our cloths, to filter our drinking water and to purify the air we breathe. We are globally facing soil, water, air, population growth, food, obesity, disease, environmental, and climate change challenges. In order to meet and overcome these challenges, our responsibilities and roles as soil scientists, agronomists, farmers and others are to work together harder than ever before, to rethink our science and change our farming management practices in order to constantly revive, protect, and sustain the health of our precious and unreplaceable living soils that we all depend on for the sake of our good health, healthy nutritious food, sustaining food security, quality and productivity, enhancing water and air quality, providing comfortable habitation and human wellbeing. Our priorities are to improve the health of our soils, by increasing soil organic matter, stimulating microbial activities, enhancing soil structure, preventing soil compaction, reducing heavy tillage, and maintaining good vegetative cover with minimal external destructive inputs and practices in order to produce healthy crops, the source of our daily food for better human health. Technical Abstract: Soils have been our precious natural resources that are critical to our public health because of their impact on human and animal food, nutrition, water and air. Naturally, we strongly tied with our soils that are part of us and play major roles in our routine daily life. We rely on soils every day, to grow plants that we use for food, to build our shelters, to make our clothes, to filter our drinking water and to purify the air we breathe. We are globally facing many soil, water, air, climate change, and other challenges. To meet these challenges, our responsibilities as soil scientists, agronomists, farmers and others are to work together harder than ever before, to rethink our science and change our farming management practices in order to sustain the health of our irreplaceable living soils that we all depend on for the sake of our good health, healthy nutritious food, sustaining food security, quality and productivity, enhancing water and air quality, providing comfortable habitation and human wellbeing. |
