Professor Vincent K. Avornyo, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies’ Faculty of Agriculture Food and Consumer Services and Department of Soil Science, has emphasized the importance of soil conservation, stating that soil should be regarded as the second most important natural resource.
Professor Avornyo noted that soil is the medium for crop growth and that humans have not treated it with the care it deserves.
“Soil is the foundation of our existence, and it’s unfortunate that we’ve not given it the attention it deserves,” he said. “We need to change our attitude towards soil and recognize its importance in our daily lives.”
The remarks were made at the World Soil Day celebration held under the theme “Healthy Soil for Healthy Cities” at the Sofernet conference room on the CSIR‑SRI campus in Kwadaso‑Kumasi.
Professor Avornyo warned that the current trend is unsustainable and could lead to serious problems in the future, stating that “when the soil dies, human beings will also die or become sick.”
He explained that everything humans eat comes from the soil, and if it’s polluted or contaminated, it will affect the food and water, ultimately affecting human health.
According to him, the soil is a living entity, and it’s our responsibility to protect it.
“We need to adopt sustainable agricultural practices, reduce pollution, and promote soil conservation to ensure a healthy future.”
Professor Avornyo’s remarks serve as a call to action, highlighting the need to prioritize soil conservation and management to ensure a healthy future.
In a heartfelt address, the director of the Soil Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR-SRI), Dr. Collins Korbla Tay, has called on Ghanaians, especially those in urban areas, to consider soil as fundamental to life.
According to him, soil should not be seen as just a dead earth that is lying there, and we cannot do everything at all we find, especially dumping refuse, garbage, and waste on it.
According to him, as long as we keep dumping the waste on the soil without managing the soil very properly, the soil will get seized, and when that happens and there’s a heavy rain, there will be a flood.
According to him, the people in the third-world countries, like Africa for instance, do not value soil.
“As we all know, there are people in the third world countries, like Africa, for instance; we don’t value soil, we see soil as just dead, and so we intend to do all manner of things on the soil that has the tendency of polluting soils.
Dr. Tay noted most of the human activities of Ghanaians in the cities turn to prevent the soil from being very healthy in order to support healthy cities.
According to him, cities have been earmarked for residential facilities, industries, and all the things that will actually generate economic income without recourse to the very foundation that supports our lives.
“If you go to the cities in the past, you find vast areas of variable lands, and within cities we expect to see lands that have been earmarked for agriculture, and in so doing, we leave the soil undisturbed for the soil to have its natural life so that it can support the very activities that we actually undertake in the urban centers or the cities,” he said.
He also voiced out against the use of concrete to seize every land space after building his or her house, adding that in so doing the concrete prevents the soil from being healthy.
He therefore highlighted the benefits of the soil to humans, saying that the soil supports water streams and prevents flooding. He added that the soil is responsible for making the air temperatures normal for city life.
According to him, Ghanaians need to learn how to manage soils much as we want to undertake economic development within the urban source.
Also, the president of the Soil Science Society of Ghana, Dr. Edward Yeboah, added that soil health is the soil’s ability to function as a living ecosystem, supporting plant and animal life, filtering water, storing carbon, and cycling nutrients, essentially acting as a sustainable resource for food, clean air/water, and climate regulation, rather than just dirt for crops.
According to him, it’s about maintaining a balanced, diverse community of organisms and good physical and chemical structure for long-term productivity and environmental quality, not just short-term yield.
He also noted that urban soils provide essential ecosystem services; they support food production, filter water, store carbon, regulate temperatures, and sustain biodiversity. However, soil sealing, pollution, and urban expansion threaten these benefits, increasing flood risk, intensifying heat islands, and threatening food production in peri-urban land.
The World Soil Day event was attended by researchers, local government officials, students, and representatives from NGOs working on environmental conservation, all echoing the call to treat soil not as a waste receptacle but as a living asset that underpins health, prosperity, and resilience.
Source: Appleghtvlive.com
