Earth Day and the Lessons We Can Learn
- Kris Nichols
- Apr 22
- 3 min read
Today we celebrate Earth Day—sharing messages about stewardship, sustainability, and caring for the land that sustains us. As spring fieldwork ramps up across the Northern Hemisphere, we are once again witnessing dust storms – a visible sign of the quiet erosion of one of our most valuable resources: the soil itself.
There’s an irony here that’s hard to ignore.
A Familiar Story We Keep Repeating
Dust storms and degraded landscapes are not relics of the 1930s—they are ongoing realities. The conditions may look different, and the impacts may feel less immediate, but the underlying processes remain the same.
After the Dust Bowl, we invested heavily in soil science. We built institutions, created conservation programs, and developed technologies designed to protect soil. For more than 90 years, we have expanded these efforts—measuring, monitoring, and managing land with increasing sophistication.
And yet, we are still losing soil. After implementing the Clean Air (1970) and Clean Water (1972) Acts in the U.S., the amount of soil lost annually dropped from about 3 billion metric tons in 1982 to around 1.9 billion metric tons in 1997. From 1997 to today, the amount of annual U.S. soil erosion has only decreased by around 0.2 billion metric tons each year.
Not only are we losing soil, but in many cases, we have scaled up the farm management practices driving that loss.
The Illusion of Progress
Currently, high-input systems—fertilizers, irrigation, and advanced machinery—agriculture has changed how soil loss is experienced. In the 1930s, erosion triggered mass migration, economic collapse, and visible human suffering. Today, these issues are less visible particularly in Western countries where the scale of human impact is less.
Food production continues. Yields remain stable. The grocery store shelves stay stocked.
But this stability is misleading. The absence of visible crisis masks the damage belowground and long-term resilience.
Spring: A Moment of Connection We Overlook
Planting season has begun in full force. Across the landscape, trees and perennial plants are leafing out and seeds are being placed into the soil—into what we often call “good earth.”
Plants are connected to the soil and soil to plants in a cycle where carbon flows from one organism to another. These relationships are not just about growth—they are about resilience. Spring tillage plays a central role in the disruption of this cycle. When soil is tilled, we break apart not only the physical structure of the soil, but also the biological networks that give it function.
And the irony deepens …
At the exact moment when nature is reactivating these biological systems—when plants and microbes are reestablishing connections—humans are often breaking them apart.
What Are Our Opportunities to Change?
In many cases, we’ve built agricultural management systems that rely on external inputs to maintain productivity instead of rebuilding the biological and ecological systems that create resilience. However, soil is not just a medium for growth of plants aboveground—it is a living, dynamic system driven by carbon flows, biological interactions, and continuous feedback between aboveground and belowground life.
To protect this biological system, our food production can prioritize:
Using low disturbance tillage implements, if tillage is necessary
Planting into green, growing cover crops or perennials
Managing inputs, particularly fertilizers, to stimulate biological activity
Developing better planting tools and seed varieties to use in these regenerative systems
Nature already knows how to build resilient systems.
Plants reach for sunlight to fix carbon by photosynthesis.
Roots branch through the soil.
Fungi extend those roots, connecting them into vast underground networks to improve soil health and nutrient cycling.
Microorganisms cycle nutrients, build soil structure, and create the compounds to sustain all life.
Our role is not to override these soil systems. HUMANS NEED TO WORK WITH THEM.
Beyond Earth Day
Earth Day should not be a single moment of reflection—it should be a shift in perspective.
As we move through this planting season, the question is not simply how quickly we can get crops in the ground.
We should also question:
Are we maintaining the connection between aboveground and belowground systems?
Are we protecting soil during its most vulnerable periods?
Are we using the biological processes that drive resilience?
Are we choosing food that supports regenerating soil?
The Dust Bowl taught us that soil loss has consequences.
Today, the lesson is harder to see—but no less important:
Just because we can continue producing does not mean we are regenerating soil.
As we look across fields this spring—at seeds being planted, leaves emerging, and life returning—we would do well to remember:
Everything we see aboveground begins belowground in the soil.
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