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Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti. We believe that the path to sustainability is through transformation, of both disempowered people and discarded materials, turning apathy and pollution into valuable resources. SOIL promotes integrated approaches to the problems of poverty, poor public health, agricultural productivity, and environmental destruction. We attempt to nurture collective creativity through developing collaborative relationships between community organizations in Haiti and academics and activists internationally Empowering communities, building the soil, nourishing the grassroots. Why SOIL?
Increased global consumption of food and fiber has diminished soil resources and increased environmental pollution. Nutrient and chemical runoff from industrialized crop and livestock production and human waste pollute water supplies, with serious regional environmental, health, and social implications. Deforestation, driven by localized poverty and charcoal demand and global demand for forest resources, has led to serious erosion. Fertile soil needed for productive farming is washed into aquatic systems, where it displaces fishstocks in a cycle that continually reduces local food production. In addition, the denuded mountainsides no longer protect communities from landslides and floods.
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I
determined that my posture, within the community and before life, should Pablo Neruda (Towards the Splendid City, 1971 Nobel Lecture) |
Maintaining soil is the essence of sustainability
from both environmental and social perspectives. The basic elements that make
up living matter all come from, and return to, the soil. Nutrients from
the soil are constantly flowing through all living organisms. Healthy
soil retains and cleanses water resources and protects communities from natural
disasters. All of humanity is dependant on soil, biologically, economically,
socially, and spiritually. Human health,
livelihood, and wellbeing are inextricably linked to the soil.
Increased soil fertility is also critical to
income generation, particularly in impoverished agricultural communities, which
constitute approximately 2.4 billion people worldwide. In contrast to industrialized
farming systems, these communities rarely have access to the commercial fertilizers
that are used by wealthier farmers to maintain soil fertility and increase production,
making it difficult for poor farmers to compete in the global market.
Each year hundreds of thousands of farmers are forced to leave their land and
seek work in the cities, no longer able to support their families through farming.
Cities do not have adequate jobs or services to absorb the flow of internally
displaced refugees and, in many communities, poor water and sanitation contribute
to the spread disease and drive families deeper into poverty.
Given
their importance to human health, livelihood and wellbeing, access to soil fertility
and water resources are politically and socially regulated and, much like oil,
are increasingly controlled by capital markets. Poor farmers are unable to afford
prime agricultural land, irrigation or inputs and much of the world does not
have access to safe drinking water resources. The cycle of poverty is
perpetuated.