Fun Facts
A teaspoon of soil can contain more organisms than there are humans living on earth.
— Save Soil Movement using UN Convention to Combat Desertification & Global Environmental Facility maps
https://www.thegef.org/what-we-do/topics/land-degradation
https://earth.org/95-of-the-earths-soil-on-course-to-be-degraded-by-2050
Every second one acre of soil becomes sand.
— National Resources Conservation Service USDA
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2023-01/Healthy-Soils-Are-full-of-life.pdf
A study on nutrients in food concluded that we would have to eat 8 oranges to get the same amount of vitamins and minerals as our grandparents did with one.
— Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Kushi Institute, & Organic Consumers Association
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss
The first synthetic fertilizers were made as a byproduct of World War II bomb making.
Plants are farmers! They can interact with probiotic fungi and bacteria in the soil to trade for resources hence why there aren't any gnomes in the woods fertilizing the ground.
— Professor James F. White, Rutgers University Department of Plant Biology
One oak tree can host 1,500 species of insects.
— The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees by Doug Tallamy
One out of every three bites of food you eat exists because of animal pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths, birds and bats, and beetles and other insects.
— Oct 25, 2006 study co-authored by Claire Kremen, an assistant professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management & published by Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
https://nature.berkeley.edu/news/2006/10/pollinators-help-one-third-worlds-crop-production
The world has been farming beyond-organic up until the last 300 years.
— Organic Farming, A Historical Perspective by Erkan Rehber, Şule Turhan and Hasan Vural
A study found that flying roses to the US on valentines day had the emission impact of letting 78,000 cars run on the road for a year straight.
— Ros Davidson for WE HUMANS Ted Talk Blog
https://ideas.ted.com/the-environmental-impact-of-cut-flowers-not-so-rosy/