The Depletion of Our Soil

I ran into a good friend the other day. We live in the same neighborhood. We are also the only ones in the neighborhood that have our own organic gardens. We discussed how our gardens did this year, and how great it would be for the environment, if everyone had an organic garden. Of course that discussion lead to starting a business of putting gardens in for people, and helping them maintain it, and Gaffney named the business "Sun Spots". It will be great someday, when our priorities will be on our health and our children's future health as well.


"In the future, we will not be able to rely anymore on our premise that the consumption of a varied balanced diet will provide all the essential trace elements, because such a diet will be very difficult to obtain for millions of people."
Dr. Walter Mertz, U.S. Department of Agriculture, told to congress in 1977.

Dr. Linus Pauling the two-time Nobel Prize winner states that: "You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.

Dr. Charles Northen, MD researcher reports that, "In the absence of minerals, vitamins have no function. Lacking vitamins, the system can make use of the minerals, but lacking minerals vitamins are useless."

1992 Earth Summit Statistics

1992 Earth Summit Report* indicate that the mineral content of the world's farm and range land soil has decreased dramatically.

Percentage of Mineral Depletion From Soil During The Past 100 Years, By Continent:
North America 85% **
South America 76%
Asia 76%
Africa 74%
Europe 72%
Australia 55%

* You may remember the 1992 Earth Summit by the fact that President Bush wouldn't sign any of the treaties.

** Some US farms are 100% depleted and some are 60% depleted, the average is 85% depletion as compared to 100 years ago. This is worse than in any other country in the world because of the extended use of fertilizers and "maximum yield" mass farming methods.


Mineral nutrient depletion continues to be a problem in U.S. farm, forest and range soils. This depletion is caused by natural processes, such as weathering and erosion, particularly in the sensitive soils of the southeastern United States. More significantly, throughout the United States, human accelerated depletion is caused by the production of high yield crops and livestock grazing. Those activities cause nutrients to be removed and organic matter to be depleted from the soil's natural cycling system. Moreover, when commercial growers attempt to replenish the soils of only some mineral nutrients by fertilization they may exacerbate mineral nutrient imbalances. While methods exist to replenish the soil of its mineral nutrients there is a relative lack of knowledge on how to identify all deficiencies and to fully correct them. In addition, the lack of an economic incentive to implement long term, soil-building solutions perpetuates the relative fragility and inconsistency of US soils' nutrient supplying power.

Michael Karr, Ph.D.

ARCPACS Certified Professional Soil Scientist