The public must be further educated about the role of soil and its importance in agriculture, both now and in the future.
This is according to Kirstie McAdoo, the head of education and research at Airfield Estate, who spoke to Agriland ahead of the launch of the estate’s World of Soil experience.
The interactive experience, held within three large domes on Airfield Estate, is the first new visitor experience at the site since its redevelopment 10 years ago.
McAdoo said education is vital, and people need to be aware of “the fact that 95% of the food that they eat comes from soil”.
Airfield Estate, a Dublin-based urban farm and garden centred around food and sustainability, launched the World of Soil experience today (Friday, May 26), which aims to educate the public on the importance of soil and its management.
McAdoo highlighted that soil does not just impact food, its production and security, but biodiversity and climate change too.
“25% of biodiversity is held within the soil as well. So, there’s no way that biodiversity can be correct above ground if it’s not right below the ground as well,” she said.
It also needs to be noted, she said, that soil “provides us with a huge amount of ecosystem services”.
“It captures carbon for us which obviously helps with reducing the impacts of climate change, but it also filters our water and keeps it safe as well,” McAdoo added.
World of Soil
The main aim of the World of Soil experience, McAdoo explained, is to encourage people to treat the planet and its soil well for the next generation.
“We want people to be good ancestors and we want people to leave here thinking what can I do to help soil,” she said.
“Whether that’s reducing their food waste, composting more, choosing more regeneratively farmed produce.
“We want them to go home and start looking at their own gardens and green spaces near them and think: ‘Could we actually rewild some of this?’.”
McAdoo said some experts have predicted that, due to “intensive farming across the world”, the Earth may only have 60-100 harvests left before soil becomes inert.
“It’s a really scary statistic. We’re not here to doomsday about it, we’re not here to scaremonger about it, but actually say ‘now is the time to change’,” she said.
“We want the public to get excited about it and understand terminology like ‘eco system services’ and ‘regenerative agriculture’, and really get intrinsic knowledge of all of those things.”
The ‘basis of everything’
Garden designer and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) soil ambassador Diarmuid Gavin, echoed McAdoo’s sentiments at the launch of the World of Soil experience today.
“When we think that all human life depends on a skim of this material, that kind of crust of the earth that’s maybe 8-10cm deep. It can take up to 400 years for an inch of soil to be made,” he said.
“We have in the past and in various places around the world and even in parts of this country, we are doing our best to disregard or destroy it because we don’t really understand what it does. It is the basis of everything, soil and water.”
Macra president, Elaine Houlihan, said the World of Soil experience is an excellent way to educate the public about the importance of soil.
“What they have done here at Airfield Estate is absolutely amazing to see. What’s here is so beneficial for everybody, not just for the younger generation, to have a greater understanding of how much we need soil,” she said.