The Importance of Soil — That Universe Beneath Our Feet

Opinion Column

Loreto Navarrete

Executive Director of Chilean Association of Regenerative Livestock Farming

For many years, I worked very closely with astronomers. They taught me to look at the sky and ask big questions about life in the universe. But it wasn’t until I encountered agronomists that I once again marveled at life here on Earth. That was when I began to wonder about my own life and its connection with all other forms of life—not in distant galaxies, but right beneath our feet.

In the soil lives a web of life as tiny as it is indispensable: bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, and fungi. Among these, mycorrhizae—fungi that associate with roots—expand plants’ ability to absorb water and nutrients. All that life fulfills vital functions: it recycles organic matter, facilitates nutrition, protects against pathogens, and enables chemical communication between plants through their roots. And it is those plants that sustain our existence: we eat them directly or they nourish the animals we depend on. That invisible web, beneath every step we take, is the silent foundation of life.

In southern Chile, where rainfall and natural fertility often seem inexhaustible, we tend to take abundance for granted. However, our grandparents knew that the soil had to be cared for: that it shouldn’t be left bare, that it should be enriched with manure or compost, that exhausted land needed rest or crop rotation.

Recovering those practices is easier than many think, and it can make the difference between degrading or regenerating life.

Today’s invitation is to look at the soil again. Let’s restore it through regenerative practices: minimize tillage to preserve its structure; reduce to a minimum—or eliminate—the use of herbicides and chemicals that impact its biodiversity; and, above all, keep it always covered with vegetation. Because bare soil turns into dust carried by the wind or mud washed away by rain; whereas soil covered with plants, supported by deep roots, absorbs and retains water, improves infiltration, and better prepares us for the extreme weather events that are already part of our reality.

Caring for the soil is not just the job of farmers and ranchers. It concerns us all. Every field—but also every public policy, every consumer decision, and every plate of food—affects that thin layer of life that makes all others possible, including our own.

The astronomers taught me that when we look at the sky, we are seeing the past of all those stars. But from the agronomists I learned that, if we turn our attention to the soil, we can secure our future.