On December 5, a practical conference "Soil as a superorganism" will be held

This day marks the World Soil Day, which emphasizes the importance of soil resources, their role in preserving ecosystems and ensuring food security. The organizer of the event is the Union of Organic Farming.

“Russian black soil is more expensive than any oil , any coal, more expensive than gold and iron ores. it contains the age-old inexhaustible Russian wealth!” said the great Russian geologist and soil scientist, professor of mineralogy and geology at St. Petersburg University Vasily Dokuchaev.

The production of all food is connected with the soil. But the soil itself is not only a means of production. It is a living resource on which more than half of the biodiversity of our planet is concentrated. Up to 90% of living organisms live or spend part of their life cycle in the soil, but we only know 1% of this hidden universe. Almost all of the antibiotics we take to fight infections have been created using soil microorganisms. This is the most important part of the biosphere. Living tissue of the planet Earth.

When agriculture works bypassing the soil, when gross yields, crops, loans, agricultural machinery, fertilizers, and anything else are at the forefront, this is an inverted hierarchy. A system built on ephemeral, transient foundations. This year such a harvest, next year it will be different, then the third. Money, tranches, plans, reports. Yes, it's important, but the true center of all agriculture is the soil and how we work with it. Caring and responsible, caring attitude towards her. The soil has served people for millions of years and, we hope, will serve for millions more. It is about the soil, in the context of generations, that you need to take care of first of all, and not try to squeeze it out to achieve a result that is not very significant on a long horizon of time. If we lose the soil, then there will be nothing, and humanity too.

This is what the practical conference of the Union of Organic Farming "Soil as a superorganism" is about. About how important it is to shine a candle into the darkness of the future in time. Farmers are at the heart of a vast system, and their choice of relationships with soil affects human HEALTH, wildlife, the global food chain and biodiversity, and environmental quality. Today they are actually one on one with this global task among the pressure of the system, chemists, mass market and other madness.

A conference for responsible agricultural producers whose task is to conserve soil, preserve it as a renewable resource, maintain natural fertility, obtain sustainable yields and pass on healthy and fertile soil to future generations. Let's meet, exchange experiences, shake hands with a friend, listen to practitioners, what they have already achieved, and what else needs to be worked on. They take care of the soil, only a few agricultural producers are able to competently work with it, and at the same time getting stable results is even less. The more valuable their experience.

“From the point of view of agricultural technologies, conscious farming, the most responsible and soil-friendly, nature-like, is a new global agricultural trend. Organic farming and biologization are steps beyond chemical pesticides and agrochemicals, even the most modern ones, beyond the concept of plant nutrition with increased doses of NPK. Not to make plants a bodybuilder on steroids, but to help them be healthy. Develop and implement various methods of working with soil health. Agrochemistry will go into the production of industrial crops for subsequent industrial processing. As for food products for people, it will be an integrated production, where chemistry is used with biology in symbiosis, or organic farming. This is the future,” says Sergey Korshunov, Ph.D.

With the natural fertility of soils, without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, organics are constantly working. This is a limitation that we have taken upon ourselves. As a result, healthy soil and phytosanitary stability of organic ecosystems are maintained, plant immunity increases, they get sick less and better withstand climatic stresses, the quality and taste of products improve, moisture is preserved, and soil structure improves. Conditions are created under which plants absorb the substances necessary for nutrition better and more efficiently. This is a longer and agro-technologically complex path with a long-term result. Over time, healthy soil begins to work for the agricultural producer.

In addition to production indicators, healthy soil and the absence of chemicals ensure ecosystem restoration. Birds and bees fly over organic fields, natural entomophages are preserved, wild animals do not die. Harmful substances are not washed into groundwater and natural reservoirs, life in them is also preserved. Long crop rotations, protective forest belts help to restore agrobiodiversity. Products from organic fields turn out to be healthy and biologically complete, they grow naturally, without accelerations and pumping, they absorb the fullness of the natural elements and substances they need.
Organic farming today is a donor of solutions proven in industrial conditions and in different regions. Various approaches, methods and agricultural technologies are used. They are born, corrected and polished in organic fields. This is a titanic work, the finest settings that overtake science. We will talk about its results at the conference. Valuable information that you will not get from other sources.
“Already now, we, organics, grow crops no worse than chemists. We have more risks. And our task is to learn how to reduce risks without the use of chemistry. It is hard for us, agricultural producers, to learn from scientists. It is easier for us to learn from people like us,” says Sergey Korshunov.

The Union of Organic Farming gathers like-minded people to present speeches by leading agricultural producers who have managed to consistently obtain quality crops for many years without the use of chemical pesticides and agrochemicals, while preserving the soil, the environment, and also increasing agrobiodiversity.

And some basic and far from the only facts why this is important.

For the state
• The progressive degradation of Russian farmland is already visible to the naked eye from satellites (data from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences).
• More than 80% of agricultural land in RUSSIA is degraded. In the world - 30%, we are ahead of the world in land degradation by almost three times (data from the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia and the UN FAO).
• Russia is the only country in the world that can put into circulation more than 48-100 million hectares of agricultural land. This also has a downside - the illusion of the infinity of the resource - "there is a lot of land", why save it then?
• Every year 1.5-2 million hectares of degraded land are added in Russia, which leads to losses of up to 3.9 million tons of agricultural products in grain equivalent (data from the All-Russian Research Institute of Agroforestry Reclamation Institute (VNIALMI).
• Damage due to soil erosion alone, more than 25 billion rubles. per year (data from VNIALMI).
• Our government programs for the development of the agro-industrial complex were built on many years of lobbying by Western transnational chemical corporations.
• 70-80% of Russia is in the zone of risky farming. Agricultural technologies adapted to climatic stresses, hybrids, seeds and breeds are about organic farming.
• Fertility and biodiversity do not have major financial contributors. They are formally present on government agendas, but in reality, practical measures are being taken critically insufficient throughout the country.
• We risk becoming a generation in which Russia loses land as a resource.

For agricultural producers
• There is a confusion between the concepts of productivity and soil fertility - no, they are different. Productivity does not equal fertility. And they are supported in different ways. The introduction of chemical fertilizers does not increase fertility.
• Resistance of plant pests and diseases is growing faster than new chemicals are being developed.
• The number of pests with resistance to chemical insecticides or acaricides increased to 46.
• Resistance to chemical fungicides was found in more than 150 species of pathogens.
• Resistance of weeds is shown to all known classes of chemical herbicides.
• Most often, the reason for the decline in soil fertility is their irrational use.
• It takes at least 3-5 years for the ecosystem to achieve phytosanitary stabilization and maintain natural fertility. This is a long and complex process that requires, in addition to time, some qualifications and an individual approach. Hastily, urgently and simply cannot be implemented.

For Consumers
• Chemicalized foods create a vicious cycle of disease and biological nutritional deficiencies, particularly affecting infants, young children, the elderly and the sick.
• Only 12% of children in our country are completely healthy (Rospotrebnadzor data)
• 40% of foodborne illnesses occur in children under 5 years old, which annually claims thousands of lives
• More than 50% of schoolchildren have chronic diseases
• Micronutrient deficiency and combined vitamin deficiency in 25 % of children
• Over the past 10 years, the incidence of nutritionally dependent diseases of the population has increased by 10-40% - oncology, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, allergies, anemia, obesity (Rosstat data).

By changing the view of land management towards assessing and taking into account the risks of its degradation, developing skills to conserve and maintain this strategically important resource and the entire ecosystem in working condition, we are taking a concrete step towards ensuring food security for ourselves and our descendants.

Join now! Registration for the event on the website of the Union https://soz.bio/prakticheskaya-konferenciya-pochva-kak/