The Soil Will Save Us Quotes

“Trillions of microorganisms, even in my own smallish backyard, like a great dark sea swarming with tiny creatures—it almost makes me feel a little seasick standing here, knowing how much business is being conducted right under my feet.”
― Kristin Ohlson, The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

“Sometimes they called themselves carbon farmers, knowing that it was carbon that was making their soils richer, moister, and darker.”
― Kristin Ohlson, The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

“Soil research is not attractive to politicians. I tell them about 25-year sustainability, but the only have a four-year span of attention.”
― Kristin Ohlson, The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

“if only 11 percent of the world’s cropland—land that is typically not in use—improved its community of soil microorganisms as much as Johnson and his colleagues did in their test plots, the amount of carbon sequestered in the soil would offset all our current emissions of carbon dioxide.”
― Kristin Ohlson, The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

“These microbes need living or dead plants to get their foods—their sugars, carbohydrates, and proteins. They’d prefer a thick and diverse”
― Kristin Ohlson, The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet

“Harl is a tenacious advocate for antitrust action against agribusiness, but he’s not optimistic that without pressure from consumers, the government will go after these huge monopolies that control our food. “There’s a huge amount of money and a lot of pressure applied whenever someone in Washington tries to do something about this,” he told me. “That pressure is applied in the form of messages like ‘Look, if you let this go on, we’re going to diminish our support for your campaign.’ When things get bad enough that consumers rise up, that’s when we’ll get another era of antitrust.” How much money is involved?”
― Kristin Ohlson, The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet