Welcome to Health of the Soil
It is with great pleasure to announce the launch of the Health of the Soil International website.
We, at Health of the Soil International, excitedly, invite you to ethically join us to farm and harvest deep-rooted loyalty and respect for the overall health of our soil.
Imagine fully-restored, spongy, friable, healthful, living & protected farm soil, brimming with billions upon billions of beneficial soil citizens (microbial community), helping to drive increased food and nutrition security in Africa and the world at large, and contributing to the seamless sequestration of carbon in the biosphere. This is our core vision, preoccupation and pride, and we’re in it together, as soil is our common ground.
We envision and professionally help to evolve actively regenerated, bio-functional soils for all farmers through the instrumentality of regenerative agriculture with the following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for programme efficiency: reduced erosional forces of water and wind, maximum water infiltration, improved nutrient cycling, zero inputs and increased overall resiliency of the land.
At Health of the Soil, we are promoting the adoption of regenerative agriculture paradigm and generating replicable solutions at the intersections of:
1. Rural Regeneration (for smallholder farmers)
2. Urban Regeneration (for urban-dwelling families and individuals)
3. Generational Regeneration (for rural and urban school-age children, who lack access to practical agricultural training, to the excitement of practical regenerative agriculture).
We ambitiously organize our activities and programmes to push Regenerative Agriculture forward at the intersection of sensitization, advocacy/campaigns, management and training to produce net-positive impacts for ecology, health and society.
Reimagining Our Agriculture
We are working assiduously to build a Regenerative Agriculture Movement to essentially raise an army of soil-respecting, building and protecting faithfuls who will be at the forefront of regenerating and conserving the soil through regenerative farming practices and pushing the conversation —that spongy, friable and generally healthy living soils teeming with billions upon billions of soil citizens/microbes are a veritable hunger and carbon drawdown solution— forward.
Through the degenerative agriculture practices of many farmers, the vast majority of the agricultural soils in Africa and the world at large are totally out of balance when it comes to soil biology and overall fertility.
The protracted physical and chemical disturbances to the agricultural soils are resulting in their failure to hold water and recycle nutrients which are two critical soil functions that mitigate biogeochemical and hydrological imbalances on a global scale.
Our soil health is irretrievably washed into the oceans. There are swathes of degraded soils, and widespread decline in belowground (soil) biodiversity.
The degradation of the lands, soils and local terrestrial ecosystems are harming the people who depend on these natural resources as well as our climate and these require a solution that is beyond the sustainability paradigm.
We develop and execute well-defined sensitization programmes, educational curriculums, training/demonstration programmes and advocacy campaign programmes on soil health, regenerative agriculture and carbon farming programmes as tested and tried solutions to soil, nutrient and biodiversity losses, food and climate crises. Read more about our Regenerative Solution.
Through our varying value-adding activities and programmes, we collaborate with various stakeholders to guarantee the following for smallholder farmers:
Increased Soil Carbon to reverse climate change.
Increased Water Holding Capacity and Infiltration to improve drought tolerance and restores water supplies.
Increased Soil Aggregation and Soil Life to create more fertility and the ability to feed the world.
Increased Nutrient Availability and Retention.
The Problem
Almost 98% of the urban schools in Africa lack access to outdoor edible school learning garden for practical agricultural training thereby denying the school-age children the opportunity to connect classroom learning to real world practical applications.
Our Solution
We are shifting how every new generation of African school-age children will perceive and practice agriculture. Through fundraising and workshops we will help install free, edible, raised-bed learning-gardens in schools to connect urban school-age children to the excitement of practical regenerative agriculture. We arm them with the knowledge, skills and attitude required to become soil health advocates and regenerative agriculture solutionaries.
Learn more about School Age Farming
Urban Food and Nutrition Security Threat Deepens
Africa is currently facing the worst food crisis since 1945. Our sociological examination reveals that every year, weather extremes, conflict/ insecurity, and macroeconomic shocks drive millions into acute food insecurity and malnutrition across the region, and the worst is yet to come if we do not put robust strategies in place to contain the issue.
The Solution
We need to reposition agriculture into diverse urban gardens, main crop cultivation at the perimeter of population centers, and range land and forestry beyond that.
At Health of the Soil, we are tackling the problem by integrating social and ecological services beyond food production including biodiversity, nutrient recycling, urban greening, economic revitalisation and education.
More specifically, we educate and help city-dwelling families and individuals to harness and set up their urban backyard spaces, patios, rooftops, fence walls (and the like) as agricultural fields to be regeneratively farmed.
In addition to the health benefits of connecting with the soil, Urban farming is a crucial link to averting the looming food-and nutrition-security threat. It is a cornerstone in the work to reduce the pressure on rural food production and helping to sequester carbon in the soil. In it together.
Learn more about Urban Farming
It is with great pleasure to announce the launch of the Health of the Soil International website.