Soil health is the foundation for food security. Geomorphologist David R. Montgomery warns that 24 billion tons of topsoil are lost every year. In his book, “Dirt,” he links the collapse of all major civilizations to the erosion of topsoil.

In the history of agriculture that spans many thousands of years, a common theme includes overharvesting, deforestation, and desertification leading to the inability to farm the land and feed the people.

With fossil-fuel driven industrialization and mass production of mono-crops, we’ve become disconnected from the land. At the supermarket, we buy produce wrapped in plastic that lasts forever. The importance of healthy topsoil is lost on many.

Intensive agriculture and conventional farming disrupt the topsoil with tilling in a process that releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world gets hotter, and the land is further degraded and subject…