Course overview — introduction
Soil knowledge
1. Scientific soil knowledge.
Soil science is a recent discipline (1870s) and the complexity of soils is still being understood. Recent discoveries on soil ecosystems and soil biodiversity still needs to be implemented to achieve sustainable management of soils. Can be considered to start from Dokuchaev in the 1870s. Historically linked to agricultural expansion in the Eurasian steppe and Northern American prairie.
2. Traditional soil knowledge linked to agricultural management.
Practitioners' knowledge, often in tacit form, and used for day to day management of agroecosystems, especially relevant in the case of smallholders, family farms and indigenous communities.
3. Soil knowledge before and beyond agriculture.
Soils have been sustainably managed by indigenous people and communities using traditional/tacit knowledge for thousands of years and still are in many parts of the world. This soil knowledge is often linked to holistic landscape management and to specific activities like foraging from tubers and roots, hunting underground prey, building dwellings, digging holes to cook or preserve food, as dwellings, or as burial; extracting pigments and clay for artistic, ritual, cosmetic and medicinal purposes, selective burning or backburning on a larger landscape scale to replenish soils with nutrients and/or to selectively manage vegetation or landscape (e.g. for hunting of large animals) and reduce fuel load, nutrient management (e.g. terra preta in the Amazon), etc
It is especially important to acknowledge that soil knowledge precedes and goes beyond agriculture, as most literature links soil knowledge with agriculture and the neolithic revolutions. Brevik and Hartmink (2010), when providing a historical perspective on soil knowledge, fall into an apparent contradiction when stating that “soil knowledge dates to the earliest known practice of agriculture about 11,000 BP.” and then admitting that “humans have always had an intimate relation with the soil”
These knowledge systems aren’t competing, they’re complementary threads in the same tapestry. When we braid them together in our schools, we empower students to see soil not as "dirt," but as a living library of ancestral innovation, scientific discovery, and ecological kinship.
What is soil?
“A natural body consisting of layers (soil horizons) that are composed of weathered mineral materials, organic material, air and water “
All definitions | FAO SOILS PORTAL | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
What is soil health?
The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) defines soil health as “the ability of the soil to sustain the productivity, diversity, and environmental services of terrestrial ecosystems”.
What is soil literacy?
Johnson et al. defines soil literacy as a combination of attitudes, behaviours, and competencies required to make sound decisions that prevent soil degradation, promote soil health, and ultimately contribute to the maintenance and enhancement of the natural environment.
“The Soil Mission Implementation plan understands soil literacy as both a popular awareness about the importance of soil and specialised and practice-oriented knowledge related to achieving soil health [3]. A more detailed definition of what soil literacy entails has been provided by Johnson et al., 2020 [4]: a combination of attitudes, behaviours, and competencies required to make sound decisions that promote soil health and ultimately contribute to the maintenance and enhancement of the natural environment.”
Land 2025, 14(7), 1372; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14071372