So, we just want you to start off with, you know, while watching your TED Talk, you

meet a really profound statement. It said, if we take care of the soil, soil will take care of us.

Could you elaborate a little more on what you mean by this, just in simple terms, like something

any one of us, the common men could understand? I'll do my best.

Soil is a living material.

Multiple people have told others in living this group of the number of organisms, the massive living creatures that exist in that, that level of soil, as living, as a living creature or a living entity, the soil can be damaged, and damaging the soil is much more important than just damaging that individual entity, the soil itself.

Soil is what we rely on for food production, for water filtration. Soil is actually the largest filtration system in the world, water filtration system.

So continued degradation, that soil not only degrades that soil itself as it sets in place, processes like soil erosion, move soil material, and the soil material is incredibly important when it's in its current spot.

But once it's eroded and gets into waterways, plugs filtration systems for drinking water, the nutrients and pesticides that are on the soil, it creates really important off-site, off-site problems.

So when we say if we take care of the soil, that means that we treat that soil in a way that the living entities can survive and thrive.

If they are thriving and surviving, that means that the crops that we also plant in that soil, which are also alive, have an environment in which those crops can also live and survive, and thrive, and thriving crops are what we need to produce the food and feed required to keep this civilization healthy and sustained.

Now, I wanted to ask you, is there a connection between soil health and some of the other global problems also that we're seeing, like climate change, and could you talk to us about what other global issues the soil can very centric to?

So soil has a lot of indirect impacts for various components across the globe. Let's talk about fuel. We're talking just about food, but in the EU, in Europe, in the US, soils have been used to produce products that aren't used for food, but used for fuel.

We'll go back to the price of materials and materials of products that the soil has produced, and that's down the food feed fiber.

Those prices increase. We tend to farm harder as previously mentioned, but just farm harder means we may tell more.

We're going to tell in farm areas that shouldn't be farm, that are more erosive, maybe willing to cut corners, because it's important to a farmer that thinks they have to have money, and I'm making farmers sound bad, and that's not the case.

If you remove grass waterways, you remove conservation practices, because I can make more money on the short term. What does that do to the living elements inside the soil?

If soil is moving from erosion, it degrades soil health. As that element of soil health decreases, the amount of soil organic matter, let's say, in the soil is that decreases, and that organic matter is the energy source for the microbes and living critters in that soil, so as we reduce that energy supply, we reduce the capacity of that soil to support.

Living components, that's the microbes, the bigger little critters that live in the soil, worms, and the crop roots.

One of the critical components, one of the key components, if we're going to save soil, let's say, and let's make it happen, is to keep the surface covered.

If the soil surface is covered, it's protected against direct sunlight, which can overheat soil, reduces soil health, it reduces the energy from falling rainstorms, that erode soil, the cover typically is organic material, which supplies energy for the microbes that are living in the soil, cover crops, perennial crops are really good things, but what do we focus on?

In too many areas around the globe, it's annual crop production, in which we till to remove what was there and plant again in this window of vulnerable, especially in the face of climate change, makes issues even more vulnerable.

...