According Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture and the Center for Sustainable Community, 1.9 Billion Tons of top soil are exported from the United States each year. As a matter of fact, half the nation's topsoil has already been exported. Problem is: nobody is getting paid for it. He explains in the video:
The loss of top soil was the primary reason for the fall of many of the greatest empires the world has ever known as starving soldiers can't march and fight. Economies grind to an abrupt halt when people have no food or when the cost of importing food exceeds what they have to spend. Great societies die when there is no top soil in which to grow crops. Permaculture is one solution. Another partial solution that Greensboro could be doing right now is using the 70,000 tons of leaves Greensboro has on hand at the White Street Landfill to make new super topsoil.
Greensboro's youth, the only asset worth more to us than the Earth itself, are looking to live in a city that thinks in this direction-- do we plan to keep our youth or not? Personally, if I were young I wouldn't stay.
Hat tip: Kathe Latham Transistion Greensboro
