Looking for a solution to a healthier planet? You’re standing on it.
Harriette Brainard didn’t fully appreciate growing up around acres of farmland until she moved away for college, where sourcing healthy, local food was difficult. She started cooking for herself instead of eating on campus, going to farmers’ markets and health food stores. That experience led her to become what she described as a “systems thinker,” who considers the intricate ways in which human and natural process are connected.
At the foundation of healthy food, healthy communities and ecosystems — in short, a well-functioning planet — is healthy soil. A single teaspoon of healthy soil contains more living organisms than there are people on Earth. It is vital to everything from feeding people to improving water quality to addressing climate change. Exposure to soil, through activities like gardening or outdoor recreation, has even been shown to bring health benefits, such as improving the immune system and lowering stress.
After college, Brainard went on to teach, to open a farm-to-table restaurant, to write and pursue business ventures, but all of those pursuits centered on the ground beneath her feet. She now works as the Director of Communications at Soil in Formation, a company founded in 2021 with the goal of restoring soil health.
“I have come to understand how significant [soil] is to absolutely everything we do,” Brainard said.
Like forests and oceans, soil plays a key role in the carbon cycle. Disturbance of that cycle, through human interventions like commercial farming, have released billions of metric tons of sequestered carbon; however, studies suggest that agriculture, done correctly, could have the opposite effect, storing more than a billion additional tons of carbon annually.
Restoring that natural process, Brainard explained, is a low-hanging fruit in the effort to reduce carbon in the atmosphere.
“We can regenerate our soil pretty quickly, and that means we can keep drawing down more of that CO2 out of the air,” she said.
That’s where Soil in Formation comes in. Brainard and her team are in the process of deploying technology to help landowners, namely farmers, collect soil data that will, among other things, help to optimize carbon sequestration, reduce the use of fertilizer, protect water quality and biodiversity, and reinvigorate rural economies.
Probes installed in the soil work like wearables sensors, monitoring metrics like carbon, pH, and moisture, to guide decision making. Soil in Formation has been working with researchers at the University of Texas and Arizona State University to deploy the technology globally.
Humans have a tendency, Brainard said, to view things in isolation. By taking a step back and understanding the connections, industries like agriculture can work with rather than against natural processes.
“Nature has been brilliant in building this system that all works together, and the foundation of that system is the soil,” she said.
Episode Links
- Soil in Formation website
- PA Legacies #159: The Ground Beneath Our Feet
- PEC Cultivates Connections at Rodale Institute
- Soil-based carbon sequestration
- Benefits of soil to mental and physical health health