How soil depletion is putting the global food supply in jeopardy

Time: It’s a strange notion, but some experts fear the world, at its current pace of consumption, is running out of useable topsoil. The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with TIME, talked to University of Sydney professor John Crawford on the seismic implications soil erosion and degradation may have in the decades to come.

Is soil really in danger of running out?


Why haven’t we heard more about this?


Another reason soil is something the average American doesn’t think about is because it has been degraded in language. We call it dirt and dirt is hard to value.

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  1. rosemerry says:

    Monsanto,Shell, pesticide manufacturers …corporations with their own agendas have long outspent natural farming advocates like Vandana Shiva in making “developed and underdeveloped” countries assume that their products and methods are better than careful use of soil in a way to replenish and improve it in more sustainable way.

  2. Steve Zerger says:

    How is it that humans never learn such basic facts about their interdependence with the web of life around them? It seems incredible after so many civilizations throughout history have followed this path. As Derrick Jensen put it: forests precede them and deserts dog their heals. We’ve finally run out of virgin soil. This will be the first collapse which will be planetary wide.