Speaking at last week’s UN-backed conference on the importance of living soil in securing food supplies, members of the Youth Food Movement demanded that delegates, including ministers, royalty and business leaders, act now to stop soil erosion and degradation.
“Please take care of our planet,” pleaded 20-year-old Nyakallo Makgoba at the close of Celebrating Soil! Celebrating Life! in Amsterdam.“Cultivate it, pass it on responsibly, so we may do the same. Please look after our soil.'
Organised as part of the Save Our Soils¹ campaign and the 2015 International Year of Soils, the event highlighted the fact that soils are being lost at a rate of 24bn tonnes per year, at an economic value of €1.5tn.Without fertile soil, delegates heard, climate goals and food security are hopeless.
Many present committed to the Save Our Soils ‘Amsterdam’ Declaration, which makes the case for organic farming and other forms of conservation agriculture. “Policy makers, governments, the business world and civil society should recognise these forms of agriculture as a fundamental solution for biodiversity, the climate and food security,” the Declaration states.
One of the contributors, former German Minister of Agriculture Renate Künast, announced: “We will make soil a criterion in international law and global agendas.”
Volkert Engelsman, the Dutch entrepreneur behind the Save Our Soils campaign, expressed his hope for the future. “Farmers who look after their soils are the true doctors of the future,” he said. “But consumers are the ‘sleeping giant’ in this story: only if they decide to fill their shopping bags with products that sustain soil health will change take place.'
His optimism, he revealed, lay in the progressive views of the new generation. 'What gives me hope,' he stated, 'is that young thought leaders all agree that organic and sustainable agriculture is the way to go. We, as the ruling generation, must therefore takeresponsibility.”
