Envisioning a New World Through Soils

The pandemic has given me much food for thought. I am humbled by the power of Mother Nature who brought the world’s most powerful nations to their knees with invisible nucleotides.

The pandemic has also illuminated the deep rooted inequities in our country. We don’t value those who are keeping our city functioning, such as our grocery store workers and delivery workers (many are not even paid the minimum wage, let alone given health care or paid sick leave).  COVID-19 has impacted the historically marginalized populations harder, and unfortunately this is no surprise to many of us.  

But I want to be hopeful and make this pandemic an opportunity for rethinking our values and priorities. Can we critically examine the relationship among systems of oppression, the existing political economy and the fate of the planet and begin to envision a different world in which the economy exists to serve the humans and the rest of the planet? A world in which “the bottom line” is the wellbeing of our ecosystems, humans included? A world free of systemic oppression and instead full of humanity and compassion?  

I think we can.  And I dare to dream that soils are what can bring us all together.  No matter who we are or where we are, we need soils. Soils connect every single one of us to each other and to Mother Nature through the food we eat.  It’s time for us to start envisioning a new world together.