IUBS Centenary Webinar Series
To commemorate completion of 100 years of promoting excellence in biological sciences, IUBS has
launched a Webinar Series bringing the best of all disciplines to discuss evolution, taxonomy,
ecology, biodiversity, and other topics that represent unified biology and the topics of prime
importance to address contemporary problems such as climate change, endangered species, food and
nutrition, health etc.
The first lecture of the webinar series was delivered by Rattan Lal, 2020 World Food Prize Laureate
on “Forgetting How to Tend the Soil” on 2nd October 2020.
Prof. Rattan Lal is a Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Carbon Management
and Sequestration Centre at The Ohio State University. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University
Iceland, and holds a Chair of Soil Science and Goodwill Ambassador position with Inter-American
Institute of Cooperation in Agriculture, San Jose, Costa Rica. He was President of the Soil Science
Society of America (2006-2008), and the International Union of Soil Sciences (2017-2018). He
researches soil carbon sequestration for food and climate security, conservation agriculture, and soil
health. He has authored 955 journal articles, mentored 360 researchers, h-index of 150 and 101,811
citations. He is laureate of the 2018 GCHERA World Agriculture Prize, 2018 Glinka World Soil
Prize, 2019 Japan Prize, 2019 U.S. Awasthi IFFCO Award, 2020 IICA Chair in Soil Science and
Goodwill Ambassador, and the 2020 World Food Prize.
About the Lecture
Almost one -third of the global ice free land area is prone to degradation by loss of soil biodiversity,
depletion of soil organic carbon stock, acceleration of soil erosion by water and wind, increase in
risks of secondary salinization, nutrient imbalance and disruption in elemental cycling by soil misuse
and land mismanagement, expanding area under surface sealing by ad-hoc and expanding
urbanization, and pollution by using soil as a global garbage dump for industrial effluents. The
problem of soil degradation is being exacerbated by the current and projected anthropogenic climate
change.
The severe problem of soil degradation is caused by the disconnect between nature and human.
Mahatma Gandhi, whose 150 th birth anniversary is being celebrated in 2019- 2020, said “ To Forget
How to Dig the Earth and to Tend the Soil is to Forget Ourselves”. Humanity is forgetting that soil is
the source of all essential ecosystem services on which depends its survival.
Healthy soil, being a large reservoir of biodiversity, is a living entity. Yes, “All life depends on soil:
there is no life without soil, and no soil without life, they have evolved together” said Charles Kellogg
of USDA. Furthermore, “health of soil, plants, animals, people” (Sir Albert Howard), and
environment is one and indivisible. Once soil health is degraded that of everything else is degraded
with it. John Muir, a U.S. Philosopher said “In nature when you try to pick one thing, you find it
hitched to everything else”. Indeed, “everything is connected to everything else” (Barry
Commoner,1972).
Therefore, the long-term solution to addressing global issues (e.g., climate change, hunger and
malnourishment, water scarcity and eutrophication, air pollution, and dwindling of biodiversity) lies
in restoring soil health and functionality and not taking soil for granted by reconnecting humanity to
soil. Being a living entity, soil has rights to be protected, restored, thrive and managed judiciously.
World peace and tranquillity are being jeopardized by the global problem of soil degradation. People
are mirror image of the soil they live on. When soil is degraded and not tended, people are helpless
and desperate.
To survive, the modern civilization must never ever “Forget How to Tend the Soil”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-YDypJ4vBQ