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Symphony Of The Soil: Seeing Soil

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http://tinyurl.com/pt4d6uf [amazon.com]

The Soil Underfoot: Infinite Possibilities For A Finite Resource
by G. Jock Churchman (Editor), Edward R. Landa (Editor)

Deborah Koons Garcia - Seeing Soil

Most people are soil blind. They walk on soil, they gaze at it on the horizon, they gain pleasure and sustenance from its bounty, but soil itself goes unseen, unappreciated. Modern life conspires to remove us from any connection to or awareness of soil. We spend a lot of time looking down, not at the soil, but at the various devices that connect us to our techno-fied world. Those of us who understand the importance of soil can bemoan the sad state of affairs as evidenced by the story of the schoolchild who visited a farm for the first time and, when presented with a carrot freshly pulled from the earth, proclaimed, "I'm not going to eat that—it's been in the ground!"

A few years ago, I decided the world was ready for a good film on soil, and I was the filmmaker to make it. I have to admit my bias was toward seeing soil as an agricultural medium. As I went through the 4-year process of researching, shooting, editing, and completing the film, I found that my attitude toward soil completely changed. At a certain stage, I did not want to have any agriculture in the film. I empathized with the attitude of some Native American tribes—why would I cut into my mother, the earth? The plow, I had learned, had caused more damage to this planet than the sword. I became protective of the soil and wanted to move away from the assumption that soil is a thing and we humans' primary concern should be what can we get out of it—what is in it for us. I wanted to support and encourage a healthier relationship with what I came to see as a miraculous substance and bring that awareness to a wide audience.

In preparing to make the film, I bought a bunch of alarmingly thick soil textbooks, some nonacademic books about soil, and befriended soil scientists. I love the research phase of filmmaking. At that point, anything and everything is possible. I absorbed massive amounts of information and my head filled up with many more interesting ideas than I could possibly fit into a 90-minute film. Watching a good film is primarily an emotional experience—we want movies to move us. Even if a movie is information heavy, we want that information to engage us, to affect our hearts and minds. I realized that distilling all I was learning into an audience-friendly piece would be a real challenge. How could I take soil, a medium that is dark and seemingly inert, and marry it to film, a medium that is all about movement and light? When I started shooting, I had my cameraman set up a shot focused on a patch of soil. I called out "Action!" He turned to me and said "There's nothing happening."

"Oh," I replied, "There is, there is! There's so much happening! How will we fit it all in!"

My task as a filmmaker was to allow, invite, encourage, fascinate, and seduce my audience into understanding and feeling a connection with soil.

Since film is essentially visual, I finally had to figure out exactly what was going to be up there on the screen. Ultimately, my work was to figure out how to see the soil. My vision expanded. I would see soil in many different ways, and by presenting this variety of points of view, the nature of soil in all its glory would be revealed. I realized that for me to hold a piece of soil in my hand and say this is soil would be like holding a drop of seawater in my hand and saying this is the ocean.

How to see soil: As an entity, as an organism, as an ecosystem, as a community, as a collection of cycling nutrients, as a place where billions of microorganisms thrive, as a plant-growing medium, as a living system. It's alive! We can see soil in time and in space. We see soil in close-up, medium, and long shot. Ultimately, I had let people to see soil in all these ways and more. Most importantly, I decided to present soil as a protagonist of our planetary story, and the protagonist of my film.

Since I am an experienced filmmaker with a classical bent, I decided to write the story of soil in three acts. Act 1: Soil itself, its multidimensional nature. Act 2: Soil in relationship, primarily in relationship with humans. Inevitably, that relationship must focus on agriculture. Act 3: Soil and big picture ideas such as soil and global warming, soil and water, soil and feeding the world, soil and metaphysics.

Having digested so much material and having debated with myself and my colleagues about what should be in the film, I came up with a wonderful title: Symphony of the Soil. The piece would be complex, made up of many different instruments and parts, creating a satisfying whole. Soil is a symphony of elements and processes, and my film would evoke that. This also allowed me to bring music into the mix.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

My editor Vivien Hillgrove and my composer Todd Boekelheide are so talented, and working with them is such a fulfilling part of making a film. I was confident that embracing music as a strong, primary element would sweeten and deepen the film-going experience. One of my very favorite parts of Symphony is the treatment of the 12 different soil orders (see Editors' Note). The melody, musical phrasing, and instrumentation for each of the orders echoes the "personality" of the order itself: Ultisols' music has an old man tuba, Oxisols' has tropical maracas, Histosols' sounds, well, evocatively wet, and on through the orders. It is brilliant, if I do say so myself, and it is exactly what I wanted. Every time I see this section, I smile. Soil scientists and soil freaks who know the orders see tell me excitedly that they love how we dealt with the taxonomy. They get it! It is fun and fresh. As I told a nonscientist friend: yes, you will sit through all 12 soil orders and you will like it. Which she did.

To further my goal of promoting soil consciousness, I decided to mix science, art, and activism, to create a kind of hybrid that is all too rare in film these days. Music, of course, is an essential part of this artistic treatment. In addition to this, I found a young artist who painted hundreds of watercolors to animate various processes that I wanted to explain, such as photosynthesis and nitrogen cycle. This tactic was highly successful and adds variety and texture to the film. In all the decisions I made, I committed to a process in which science is embraced and revealed through artistic means, which then moves people to perhaps change their behavior in some way.

Unfortunately, the absurd antiscience bias that exists in American culture today has made its way into the film world as well. Filmmakers are often wary of too much science. I actually believe people enjoy science.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

The word science comes from the Latin word sciere, to know—science is about what we know. And soil science is a field where much is known and much remains to be discovered. Perhaps, more than in other disciplines, soil scientists appreciate what they do not know, yet. Audiences want to know how things work, especially what happens in the natural world, but the science has to be intriguing. Some filmmakers dumb things down in the hope that will please people. My experience is that smarten up is a better strategy. People are hungry for information that helps them make sense of the world. Giving people a new way of seeing allows them a deeper understanding of the world around them, and challenges them intellectually. They learn and then they feel good about that; they gain confidence, and want to learn more. This is actually the way our brains work—our positive reinforcing loop. I seek to respect and nourish the intelligence of people watching my films. Fortunately, the topic of soil provides fertile ground for this kind of exploration and active engagement with audiences. To fully appreciate soil, you have to understand it.

Soil is a transformational substance. It is the place on earth that transforms life into death and death back into life. In the film, scientists dig soil pits, and then stand in them. During the first few screenings for lay audiences, I was surprised by the laughter that occurred when the soil pit shots came up on the screen. Then I realized that there is a subconscious connection between a soil pit and a grave. The laughter was a reaction to that. Examining a soil profile revealed by a soil pit in a curious way makes us face our own mortality. Coming face to face with the soil profile reminds us that we arise from the soil and we return to it.

Because of technological advancements such as electron microscopes and satellites, we are able to see soil from more vantage points than ever before in history.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Soil in extreme close-up: We can see soil microscopically, and start to learn about billions of microorganisms that are at home in a healthy soil. We are just beginning to understand the relationships between these microorganisms and their dynamics within the soil. One of the things I learned about in my soil studies that struck me as totally cool was cation exchange. The idea that on the most microscopic level, ions were constantly moving back and forth between the soil solids and water held in pores just blew my mind. One day, as I was in the middle of making the film, I went for a walk near my home, looked out on the hills, and felt fully conscious of how much movement, how much activity was happening in my own soil community. From mountain lions, deer, foxes, voles, worms, dragonflies, and dung beetles all the way down to electrically charged atoms bouncing around: it was all about movement. Somehow realizing how much activity was going on that was invisible to me, which was happening on the most elemental level, expanded my vision exponentially. When we finally showed the film to test audiences, it turned out that the cation-exchange part was just too much information; we had to leave it out, and I felt it was almost tragic. I told one of the scientists I was working with: "I have bad news—we have to leave out cation-exchange because pretty much everyone agrees it's just overwhelms! No matter how we cut it, we lose them on that so out it goes!" Anything that pulls the audience out of the film has to go—that is basic. So, my editor and I waved a sad goodbye to cation exchange. This is something viewers get to discover on their own.

How to see soil: We can see soil from the human point of view, walking on it, looking around to observe the kind of plants and creatures that live on, and in our own soil community.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

We can see soil in very long shots—from satellites, from space—and track the larger changes that climate, the environment, and our human practices make on soil. We can also see soil in time using technology to understand what happened in the past and how that affects what's happening now.

6.1 SOIL AS A STORY: THE STRUCTURE OF SYMPHONY OF THE SOIL

6.1.1 Act 1: Soil as a Protagonist of Our Planetary Story

Soil is alive. Soil is busy being born and busy dying. Soil has parents just as we have parents, as John Reganold of Washington State University states in the film. Soil forms from parent material. I decided that to blow people's minds about what the film about soil would be, I would have to steer clear of agriculture early in the film. So, I start on a glacier in Norway and Ignacio Chapela of the University of California (UC) at Berkeley telling us about the nutrients being pulled from the glacial deposits and made available to plants whose growth and death are then key to the development of the soil. In a nod to the current Hollywood conventional wisdom about what attracts young audiences, I do have an explosion within the first 10 minutes of the film—a volcano! We had a great time tromping around the active volcano and forests in Hawaii with Peter Vitousek of Stanford University and Oliver Chadwick of UC Santa Barbara. Seeing 50-year-old soil one day, and then 5-million-year-old soil the next day, drove home the idea that soil has a life span and different characteristics based on its age. Any viewer who thought Symphony was going to be just about plowing fields would leave that idea behind. Soil has parents, a life span, and a life cycle. It has individual characteristics. It contains billions of organisms of all sizes within it. It contains mycorrhiza and fungi, among them, the largest organisms on earth. It is so incredibly full of life.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

If it dies, if the organisms and processes cease to function, it is no longer soil—it is the four letter D word, dirt.

6.1.2 Act 2: Soil and Relationship

Patrick Holden, farmer and for many years director of the Soil Association in the United Kingdom, tells us agriculture is a dance with nature. I am a strong proponent of organic/sustainable/agroecological farming. I have had an organic bias for decades. That bias is why I make the films I make. While organic agriculture tends to be based on a conscious relationship with a living organism, chemical industrial agriculture tends to treat soil as an inert medium that chemicals are poured into and products are pulled out of. I believe we can and must transform agribusiness into agriculture, into a less toxic, more soil-friendly activity. The thousands of toxic chemicals we put on the soil, the overuse of nitrogen fertilizer, problems with soil erosion, and overuse of water—none of this is healthy. I do believe we can and must move away from practices that deform or kill the soil. The more people understand how soil works, the more likely it is that we will begin to move away from chemical agriculture. I showed Symphony of the Soil at the annual meeting of the American Society of Agronomy/Crop Science Society of America/Soil Science Society of America. I was honored to be invited to screen there, and after I arrived and saw that Monsanto was the chief sponsor, I was even more amazed and grateful for the organizers' invitation. During the question-and-answer session after the screening, we had a rousing interchange between people who believed we can feed the world organically/ecologically and those people who are absolutely convinced that we cannot. It is a great honor to have Daniel Hillel, winner of the World Food Prize in 2012, in my film. Although he is best known for inventing drip irrigation, I wanted him in the film because I had read his fascinating book A Natural History of the Bible.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I was intrigued by his philosophy about soil that has evolved during his 80 years of life. I was also honored that he appeared on the panel with me after the screening at this scientific meeting. He really liked the film, thank goodness. He also said "I don't agree with everything in the film but we need to reevaluate our assumptions about agriculture." I absolutely agree. If my film does nothing other than encourage people to reevaluate their assumptions about agriculture, I will feel that my years of work have been valuable.

6.1.3 Act 3: Soil and Big Ideas

The choices we make about how we use or abuse our soil will have impact not only on our human health but the health of our planet. We can sequester carbon, use less water, and grow healthier food if we treat soil right. Why we in the United States use our fertile Mollisols (see Editors' Note) in the mid-west prairie states, our best soils, to grow food for cars and cows instead of people shows how skewed our priorities are. Healthy soil holds onto and filters water better than sick soil. Soil full of nutrients grows food full of nutrients. Fully understanding how soil works, or does not work, encourages people to participate themselves by planting gardens, buying local food, eschewing toxic chemicals, and treating the earth a little more kindly. Some people who have seen Symphony of the Soil told me they decided to plant cover crops in their gardens to replenish their soil. At the least, people can compost. Backyard and industrial-scale recycling and composting are a great way to get the nutrients and life back in the soil. I have filmed composting on four continents and right next door. The city of San Francisco near where I live has a program in which green waste and restaurant waste are taken to a huge facility in Vacaville and composted. That compost is then sold to farmers who use it to grow crops that they sell to the restaurants, which recycles that waste back into compost.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

We need these programs everywhere. Composting is a way of getting the organic matter back in the soil, something our soils desperately need. Just as schoolchildren embarrassed their parents into recycling in the 1970s, schoolchildren these days are learning about composting in school and encouraging their parents to participate in this kind of recycling.

There are other ways to look at soil that have to do with who is doing the looking. A farmer sees soil in a very different way than a soil scientist would, but both of them understand that soil is the fount of life, that we are dependent on it, and we ignore that at our peril. To make this film, I sought the wisdom of farmers, soil scientists, and activists. Soil scientists tend to study a few topics deeply and here in California and the West, they are helping farmers figure out how to protect our precious soil. John Reganold, a soil scientist from Washington State University who was both a participant and advisor on the film, told me that he has worked with many farmers through the years. When he talks to conventional farmers, they tend to talk about their yields, the chemicals they use, and their machinery. When he talks to organic farmers, they just want to talk about their soil. I sought out farmers, primarily organic farmers, and asked them to share with me how they treat their soil. What techniques do these farmers use? Composting, cover crops, crop rotations, and mulch—practices that actually improve the soil year after year. These farmers follow what Sir Albert Howard called the Law of Return. They give back to the soil, return to the soil the organic matter and nutrients they took out of it in harvested crops. They understand we have to feed soil to keep it healthy. I kept going over and over this idea in the hopes that viewers would understand it and change the way they garden, change the way they eat.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

One of my favorite stories in the film is told by Warren Weber who has been farming organically in Bolinas, California for over 40 years. He has the first certified organic farm in California and I can tell you from personal experience that the lettuce and vegetables he grows are absolutely delicious. When he wanted information from the local agricultural authorities back in the 1970s about how to grow organically, he was told that there could never be commercial organic farms in California and that Californian soil could not support an organic regime. Now, of course, there are more organic farms and vineyards in California than any place in the United States. These farmers and our temperate climate that allows for year-round growing are why we in the San Francisco Bay Area enjoy the best food in the world. What a joy and relief that Warren Weber did not take this bad science as gospel and kept on to forge a healthy industry and a healthy soil community.

Symphony of the Soil premiered at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC in 2012. There continues to be lots of interesting screenings all over the world, some of which I have been able to attend. I have also been asked to give talks about soil that allows me to develop some of the ideas that I could not fit in the film. My talks naturally focus on seeing soil and becoming soil conscious. "Soil as Matrix, Myth, and Metaphor" has become my soil stump speech. We can see soil as a matrix, a word that comes from the Latin word Mater, mother, and it originally meant womb. Then it meant a breeding female, as in livestock. A matrix is the substance, the situation, or the environment in which something has its origin—a place that allows something to take form. Soil as a matrix allows life on earth to take form. Soil is a protagonist of our planetary story, and soil is also the mother of our planetary story.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

A soil scientist friend of mine who is a single mother pointed out to me that you only need one parent material such as a rock; then with the action of microorganisms, plants, weather, and time, a soil develops. So, soil is a single mother.

I also see soil as myth, a traditional story that a culture comes up with to make sense of the world. Creation myths often have soil as a starting point. Man is made by G-d from clay, and G-d breathes life into it. Or, a G-d makes human images from different colors of soil, and that makes different colors of humans. Soil has a role in other aspects of myth. The temples of the Greek and Roman G-ds were built on soils and terrains based on the realm that G-d ruled over. The temples of Demeter and Dionysus were placed on land that could grow things. Artemis and Apollo had temples on hunting grounds; Hera and Hermes had temples on cattle-grazing soils. At the most profound level, soil and myth are connected.

Today, there is another meaning of myth that has grown in popularity, and that is myth as a misconception, something that is not true. There are lots of these kinds of myths about soil. One is that rain-forest soils are rich. They are not—all the fertility is in the forest. If you cut the forest down and farm that land, you will run through that soil's limited nutrient supply in a very few years. Another dangerous myth is that soil will detoxify anything, that any toxic chemical can be eaten up, and transformed by soil microorganisms. Soil can detoxify some things but not all. There is still DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) in soil decades after it was banned. There are lots of myths being peddled by corporate ad and chemical companies. The idea that we need genetically modified crops to feed the world is the biggest one of these.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

It is hard to believe that if corporations control all the seeds on this planet and the plants that grow from those patented, engineered seeds, are designed to be sprayed with toxic chemicals, we are then going to be living in harmony with nature. As we now know, we are using more toxic chemicals in the genetic engineering regime than we were before it started 20 years ago. Weeds are becoming ever more resistant to pesticides; so, the corporations advise using even more toxic chemicals to control them. This toxic regime is dangerous and unnecessary. I was pleased to have Hans Herren, a World Food Prize winner, in the film talking about his hands-on experience in Africa and around the world. Organic and sustainable agriculture can feed the world, as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD) 2009 report he cochaired proved (http://www.unep.org/dewa/Assessments/Ecosystems/IAASTD/tabid/105853/Default.aspx). After 3 years of work, 900 participants and 110 countries agreed—the healthy future for our planet is in sustainable, not chemical/industrial, agriculture.

Another helpful way to see soil is soil as a metaphor. Soil shapes culture. Culture shapes soil. As an American who grew up in the Midwest in the 1950s, I am very aware of the mythic quality inherent in the American consciousness. What I have learned in the last few years is that the United States is especially blessed with really good soil. Over 40% of our soils are the two most productive orders Mollisols and Alfisols (see Editors' Note). That our soils are so rich and plentiful has shaped our national character. We can use up our resources and move on. We do not like limits. And, because our resources seemed unlimited, we did not have to recognize limits in the first 200 years of our history.

I was visiting China a few years ago to show my work, and had dinner with a senior scientist who advises the Chinese government.

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He told me that China does not have a lot of good soil, maybe 11% or so of the soil is good. China also does not have an abundance of water. The Chinese people have had to work together as a collective culture to make good use of the resources that they have and that has shaped their character.

Americans are now at the point in our history when we need to recognize limits. But in some circles, it is seen as positively un-American to do so. Within this view, imagining that we do not have limits will somehow change the harsh reality that if we keep treating our soil the way we do, we will be out of topsoil in 30 years. I can only hope that this blind arrogance can be superseded by another aspect of our national character—we like to solve problems. If someone tells us what we want to do is going to be really difficult, and we might not be able to accomplish it, we want to try harder. Moving toward healthier, more resilient ways of treating our soil is essential. Our future depends on it.

There is another metaphor I think about when I think about soil, and that has to do with the use of synthetic nitrogen, one of the most problematic aspects of conventional agriculture today. Ignacio Chapela, when teaching his students at UC Berkeley about nitrogen, compares it to a happy marriage. Nitrogen in its natural state is very stable. It takes a lot of energy to break it apart; but once it is broken apart, it runs around combining with the wrong things, causing a lot of trouble. A couple of years before Symphony of the Soil was completed, I was asked to show it as the Hans Jenny Memorial Lecture at UC Berkeley. I was honored by this invitation, and I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity; so, we made a one hour version of the film that looked finished but was not. In this particular version, I came down pretty hard on synthetic nitrogen.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

My attitude was that it causes a lot of trouble, and that we need to find other ways, healthier ways, of getting nitrogen into the soil. The film screening at UC Berkeley went well, and I was invited to show that version in a few other places, including Yale University and Fresno State University as part of their 100th anniversary celebration.

Fresno is in the center of the San Joaquin Valley of California, and more food is grown in the San Joaquin Valley than any place in the world. About 600 people showed up for the screening in Fresno on a stormy evening. Afterward, there was a panel with me and five longtime ranchers and farmers from the San Joaquin Valley. They were not happy with the way that I treated synthetic nitrogen, and they were quite vocal about that. In addition, a few of them wrote long critiques of the film and sent them to me afterward. I was pleased that they had taken so much time to help me make a better film. For one thing, I did not want my film to be dismissed by the majority of farmers who live in this country. I worked hard to reconfigure the sections on nitrogen. With the help of Ignacio Chapela, I presented the idea that for the 10,000 years of agriculture, nitrogen had been a limiting factor. With the development of synthetic nitrogen for munitions and fertilizer production in the early twentieth century, nitrogen was no longer a limiting factor for crop growth, but there are consequences from the manufacture and use of synthetic nitrogen. Increased energy usage, greenhouse gases, and dead zones that are the results of using this regime are a few of these. The Green Revolution was made possible because of the Haber-Bosch discovery that allows for the creation of synthetic N. I see the Green Revolution itself as a metaphor: putting synthetic nitrogen on regular crops makes these crops grow too much: the stalks get too tall and weak, the plants fall over (they "lodge"), and are ruined.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

So, the trick of the Green Revolution was to use dwarf plants and overfertilize them. The Green Revolution is about putting dwarf plants "on steroids," so that they look normal. This seems to be a curious and true metaphor for the most unhealthy kind of agriculture. This unnatural regime has to be propped up with pesticides, and uses more water than non-Green Revolution regimes. I was talking to a senior scientist who studies nitrogen use about how to present N in the film, as I was aware of how damaging synthetic nitrogen is to the soil, water, and air. She told me that if we had not developed synthetic nitrogen, we would have 2 billion less people on earth. I replied that is not a bad idea. Of course, she could not say that, but I am an artist; so, I can and did in a private conversation, not in my film. In the final film, I treated nitrogen in a much more thoughtful way than I originally had. I did not disparage or criticize people for using synthetic N, but simply pointed out the negative consequences of overuse. I also point out that using cover crops can cut down on nitrogen leakage up to 70%. One of the ranchers from the San Joaquin Valley who was most critical of the Hans Jenny Memorial Lecture version came to see Symphony when it was finished. He was very moved by the final film, almost to tears. He told me how much better the film was, and I felt that I had accomplished a kind of victory. I did not promote nitrogen fertilizer, but I explained it. I laid out what happens if we continue to overuse it. I hope many farmers all over the world see this film and use less synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. Maybe they will even go organic. We have had several farmers order screening copies of Symphony so that they can show the film in their communities, in England, Iowa, or India, to convince other farmers to move away from the chemical regime.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

One of the most satisfying aspects of presenting Symphony of the Soil to the public is that people are moved by it and they feel hopeful. If we changed our practices and treated soil well, we could heal our soil in just a few years. While it is true that I had to include in the film examples of destructive practices and a montage of misery of what things could be like in the future, ultimately, soil is resilient. Our hopes for a healthy future are based on healthy soil. Symphony of the Soil is ultimately hopeful.

I decided to make a film on soil because I like a good challenge. I had made a film called The Future of Food that was very well received when it came out in 2004 and continues to be popular all over the world. That film primarily dealt with the corporatization of agriculture and wholesome alternatives to that development. When I chose to make a film on soil, I assumed I would make a piece that primarily dealt with soil and agriculture. As I have learned and developed my understanding, I have moved far away from that position. I realize that soil is its own vast and mysterious realm, and agriculture is a part of that realm. I learned about soil from cutting-edge science and from ancient practices, such as those we filmed in Egypt and India. I have made a serious film that is easy to watch and user friendly. During the time I was making the film and since, I have attended several conferences in which the speaker, usually a soil scientist, despairs about the soil blindness of the general public: if people really understood how soil works, everything would change. They say that soil needs an advocate who can present its virtues to people—soil needs a good PR (public relations) agent. Every time I heard this, I would say to the colleague I was sitting with "I'm trying! We're trying!".

So now, the Symphony of the Soil is done and is making its way in the world. There are two sets of comments I have heard a few times from my audience members.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

One is that the film is surprising. I love hearing that. Surprising is good! The other is that the film reminds farmers and people who work with the soil, why they do what they do. These people want to show it to their relatives who cannot understand why anyone would want to farm or study soil; so they can appreciate why they do what they do. Symphony of the Soil heartens and fortifies. As one viewer put it, the film brings people together in a community of discovery.

It was a wonderful challenge for me and my team of collaborators to use a highly technological medium to connect people to nature. This connection transcends our relationship to agriculture. Agriculture has been practiced for only 10,000 years. Our relationship with soil goes back to hundreds of thousands of years. All generations of humans have walked on soil, observed it, learned from it, and felt part of it. Soil provides food, clay for creating art, bricks for building homes, antibiotics for healing, and gardens for beauty. Soil creates the very ground we live on. We humans are true creatures of the soil in every way. Symphony of the Soil is a celebration of soil. We made soil sexy and we made soil seen. Soil is a gift and giver. Soil is a hero and humble worker. Soil is life. Soil is sacred. Soil is home, http://www.symphonyofthesoil.com/.

6.2 EDITORS' NOTE

The Soil Taxonomy is a system for classifying and naming types of soils that was developed in the United States (by the U.S. Department of Agriculture) around 50 years ago and that has been refined by trials worldwide to become one of the main international systems for soil classification. In this scheme, every soil is placed into one of the 12 soil orders.

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Those mentioned in this chapter are Ultisols: strongly leached soils; Oxisols: intensively weathered tropical and subtropical soils; Histosols: organic matter-rich soils, for example, peats; Mollisols: grassland soils with a high nutrient content; and Alfisols: moderately leached soils with clay-rich subsoils.

[–] brux (14666) 5 years ago

Is this streaming anywhere?
Amazon, Hulu, NetFlix ?