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Consequences of Using Topsoil Rapidly

Topsoil is more than just dirt. Good, healthy topsoil is rich with life and nutrients and necessary for raising food crops and livestock. Rapid topsoil use depletes these lifeforms and nutrients and increases the risk of erosion. Rapid topsoil use and degradation has affected food supplies, ecosystems, and agriculture across the world, and the United Nations has recognized topsoil degradation as an international problem.

  1. Topsoil

    • Topsoil functions as the recycling factory for ecosystems. Dead and rotting matter is slowly transformed, broken down, and combined in topsoil as billions of microorganisms, fungi, insects, and earthworms digest and grow. The nutrients necessary to support life are recycled and made available to plants via root system. Plants cannot survive without topsoil, and the animal food chain cannot survive without plants.

    Topsoil Depletion

    • Topsoil degradation and depletion are commonly caused by aggressive agricultural practices. Growing too many crops and grazing too many livestock strips topsoil of its nutritional value and future plant cycles. Nutrients must be regularly reintroduced into the soil via rotting plant and animal matter. Using too much topsoil lowers the quality of an agricultural project or ecosystem by displacing the nutrients and minerals that originally existed there. Topsoil lacking nutrients cannot support as much life and, over time, aggressive agricultural systems require fertilizers to replace lost nutrients in order to maintain a steady yield of food.

    Erosion

    • Rapidly using topsoil leads to erosion. Topsoil is eroding at a startling rate across the world. Topsoil that lacks essential nutrients and regular replenishment from dead plants and animals easily becomes swept away by water. The Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, claims that 75 percent of the topsoil in the United States has been lost to depletion or erosion, and the U.S. loses 4 million acres of topsoil to erosion each year. The United Nations is currently fighting soil erosion and degradation in an effort to reduce world hunger and poverty.

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