It is likely that the use of pesticides, herbicides and biodiversity reduction (plant varieties in pasture) has contributed to the loss and endangerment of a key species used as a food-starter. When microbial biodiversity in the soil is reduced or altered, so too will that of the plants, all the way up the food chain to the grazing animals, and ultimately the human perched precariously atop the food chain, whose body contains 100 trillion bacteria that come directly or indirectly from the soil.
Glyphosate has been shown in a wide range of other ecotoxicological studies to negatively impact the complex interactions of microbial groups, their biochemical activity and root growth, and subsequently having detrimental effects on plant growth and productivity. Glyphosate also alters microbial populations through changing the pH of the soil, and directly inhibits and/or kills certain soil organisms, while also encouraging the growth of other, potentially less beneficial organisms -- again, not unlike the effect antibiotics have on the human gut flora microecology.
It is instructive to listen to those who have reflected deeply on the nature and significance of soil, in order to understand how the biotech/chemical corporation co-option of our global food production system has comprised the health and wellbeing of all future human and non-human generations:
"Essentially, all life depends upon the soil ... There can be no life without soil and no soil without life; they have evolved together." ~ Charles E. Kellogg, USDA Yearbook of Agriculture, 1939
"...the Latin name for man, homo, derived from humus, the stuff of life in the soil." ~ Dr. Daniel Hillel
"We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot." ~ Leonardo DaVinci, circa 1500s
"Probably
more harm has been done to the science by the almost universal attempts
to look upon the soil merely as a producer of crops than as a natural
body worth in and for itself of all the study that can be devoted to it,
than most men realize." ~ C.F. Marbut, 1920
Given how the fate of the soil, is our own fate, we can no longer stand by as distant observers as the modern, biotech and chemical company-driven food system grinds onward towards inevitable ecological collapse. It is time we occupy our food system with our forks and pocketbooks. NOT buying GMO food is a first and necessary step. Get involved! Contact your congressmen and women. Join Food Activism and Awareness groups. Support your local growers, or become one yourself! Spread information like this educate, enlighten and empower!
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