Episode 1- Cultivators: Soil

The above image comes to us from a United States Department of Agriculture's Natural Resource Conservation Service soil survey in northwestern New Mexico in 1980. It reminds us that Soil is an archive - both documenting itself and revealing its relationships with humans/animals, plants, and microbes over the long stretch of time. You can flip through the source below!

Archived at Archive.org

Episode 1 Synopsis - In this episode, Michelle and Emily introduce the podcast and welcome guest Marie-Anne de Graaff, a soil scientist at Boise State University. Episode 1 takes us on a journey into the muck to learn that soil has laid the foundation for history. From the fascinating cryptobiotic crust on the Colorado Plateau to the role soil has long played in Indigenous agriculture to the efforts of the US government to conserve soil especially after moments of disaster like the Dust Bowl, this episode (literally) grounds the podcast and provides introductions to the ideas that root More Than.

Postscript. Click here to listen to our Postscript on the sources that most inspired the stories we share in this episode.

meme via: San Jose State University Writing Center

Links and Citations for Learning MORE THAN you already know!

• United States Department of Agriculture Digital Archives The US federal government has digitized millions of historic sources. If you are an ag geek like Michelle, you could spend years exploring this archive!

• Soil is ALIVE! The photo below shows a "fun guy" from soil - fungi are essential components of all soils. There are many sources out there to teach you about how soil lives...these are a couple of our favorites: The Earth Law Center on Cryptobiotic soil and The Conversation's "The Soil is the Key to our planet's history (and future).

  

• The soil's ability to create cultural movements and values is very evident in "don't bust the crust" from the 1980s and 1990s - once you know what it looks like, soil crusts are hard to miss.

  

  Crypto biotic crust in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area - photo by the NPS.

• Did you know that many states have a State Soil? You can learn about them here!

• In the podcast, we discuss how soil is an archive. Soil itself tells a story, but we can also, literally, find soil in the archives because people have been focusing on and studying soil for a long time. As an example, check out, Soil Management, a periodical from University of Arizona Agricultural Extension Service. For an excellent discussion of soil as archive, see Cody Miller's, “Soils as Archives: Cultivating an Integrative Pedagogy for Soil History and Place-Based Education in Appalachia,” in the journal Agricultural History, (Nov. 2023) 97 (4): p. 649–655.

  One of the most famous historical moments for soil in the US was the Dust Bowl of the 1920s and 1930s. For an introduction to how Congress confronted the disaster occurring in soil, see Historical Highlights. Propaganda was one way the government hoped to raise awareness and shift traditional farming practices.

  One of the most famous historical moments for soil in the US was the Dust Bowl of the 1920s and 1930s. For an introduction to how Congress confronted the disaster occurring in soil, see Historical Highlights. In some ways the drought did not do much to shift industrial agricultural practices that were becoming increasingly prominent in the United States, but the tragedy did increase the collective consciousness about how precious soil is.

  "My dear Governor:

  The dust storms and floods of the last few years have underscored the importance of programs to control soil erosion. I need not emphasize to you the seriousness of the problem and the desirability of our taking effective action, as a Nation and in the several States, to conserve the soil as our basic asset. The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself...." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1937

  The University of California Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project is an incredible collection of primary sources from presidents throughout American History.

  In her classes on environmental history, Michelle often relies on photographs, art, and films like The Plow that Broke the Plains, to depict the centrality of soil in America's consciousness during the 1930s soil crisis. The film lives on You.Tube, but you can watch it here. You can thank us later.

Dust Bowl by Alexander Hogue, 1933. Smithsonian Museum of Art

The indigenous practice of "three sisters agriculture" has long been understood as a sustainable and informed approach to agriculture. For a living lab of companion planting in the present, see the Pueblo Farming Project in southwestern Colorado. To begin to learn the cultural importance of this agricultural practice for indigenous peoples in North America and Latin America, check out Jessica Hernandez, Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science, 2022 the excellent information about this practice in the Ancestral Puebloan cultures at Aztec Ruins National Monument (a photo of their heritage garden is to the right).

Photo by the National Park Service

Thank you for tuning in and for wanting to learn MORE THAN you did before! Episode 2 takes us into the amazing world of water in the Arid West.