Soil: Foundation for the Past
Foothold for the Future

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief
Natural Resources Conservation Service, at
World Congress of Soil Science
Philadelphia, PA
July 10, 2006

Thank you, Don (Sparks).

Sustainable soils are critical to our worldwide efforts to eradicate poverty. No one knows that better than soil scientists.

We have mapped more than 98 percent of the private lands across the U.S. In collaboration with universities and research organizations we have developed strategies that farmers and other landowners can use to manage their soil and take care of their land.

In this country, our effort to study and classify soils began more than 100 years ago. Today, we have a unique partnership to conduct soil surveys in the U.S.—the National Cooperative Soil Survey that involves federal, regional, state and local agencies and institutions.

Value of Soil

The need to manage land in a sustainable manner became abundantly clear when severe erosion devastated farmland in the 1930’s. In the wake of severe drought in our Great Plains region, huge dust storms swept across the central U.S. in 1935, displacing millions of tons of soil and hundreds of thousands of families. Our agency, originally called the Soil Erosion Service, and later the Soil Conservation Service, was born in the midst of this period. Our job was to work with farmers and ranchers to keep the soil on the land.

As our first Chief, Hugh Hammond Bennett, put it, “…if this is to be a permanent nation, we must save this most indispensable of all our God-given assets—the soil.” Soil remains a critical part of the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s mission of helping people help the land.

I know it’s always been a vital part of my life. One of my earliest memories is wearing my straw hat, my toy cowboy pistols and my red galoshes and tromping through the mud puddles between the house and garage—and getting so deeply mired in the plastic clay soil that the hired man had to come pull me out—leaving those red boots behind. Later in life I recall climbing down into a pit to judge soil when I was in FFA and then buying my first piece of property after checking and re-checking the soil maps. Even today, my soil survey book is the most dog-eared book on the ranch.

Web Soil Survey

When I joined NRCS as Chief four years ago, one of my top priorities was making
soil survey information available to all our customers. And one of my proudest moments was last August when Secretary Johanns announced our Web Soil Survey—making that dream a reality.

I invite you to visit our website, www.nrcs.usda.gov. We have the usual survey reports, digital geographic data for use in a GIS, displays of soil maps and interpretive thematic maps. However, for the first time anyone can access soil information from the comforts of their home. Further, our soils data are linked to conservation standards, climate information and our PLANTS database. Customers can manipulate the data—print it, send it to a third party for printing, download it or obtain it on a CD or DVD.

Our job does not end there. We continue to seek innovative ways to extend the information we have to better serve our customers. Through the Web Soil Survey, we have distributed more soil survey information to more customers in the past year than we accomplished with our printed copies over the past 5 years.

National Resource Inventory

Many of the conservation practices we encourage landowners to establish are focused on reducing soil erosion. Last year alone, we estimate that conservation practices prescribed by NRCS helped farmers and ranchers reduce soil erosion by more than 52 million tons.

We want to identify small problems before they become big ones. So we track soil conditions through our National Resource Inventory, which takes nearly 200,000 soil samples each year. NRI enables us to monitor the state of the land resources and to locate and address hotspots. The good news is that erosion on U.S. cropland declined 43 percent between 1982 and 2003. We also learned that about 20% fewer acres of Highly Erodible Land were cropped in 2003 than in 1982.

NRI gives us the objective data we need to identify where to direct resources through our cost-share programs to address the most serious concerns. These data also provide the feedback that farmers need to better manage their land and partner with us in conserving it.

What’s Next

The First World Soil Science Congress was held in Washington, D.C. in 1927. We have come a long way since then. The challenges of the next few decades will continue to place new demands on you.

Though advances have been made in most of the sub-disciplines, soil biology has still lagged. We welcome guidance from this conference on how our agency can contribute to addressing this important area. When soil management is linked with environmental management, it’s even more critical. This may be the next frontier for soil scientists.

And there are other challenges. How can we restore degraded soil? How can we lower the footprint—reduce the resources needed to maintain high production? We know that no-till and other reduced tillage systems increase organic matter and water retention in soils, but we don’t know all the whys. Can you discover the secrets to unlocking higher productivity and conserving soil for the next generation?

In the U.S., completing the first generation of soil maps is job one. Digitizing them and making them available 24/7 is the second phase. Discovering deeper mysteries of soil biology will challenge the next generation of soil scientists.

In the late 1920’s, R.S. Smith, director of the Illinois Soil Survey, said, “…I cannot conceive of the time when knowledge of soils will be complete. Our expectation is that our successors will build on what has been done, as we are building on the work of our predecessors.”

He was surely right. You are the heirs to more than a century of study, fieldwork and analysis. Your job, whatever nation you come from, is to build on that foundation and extend our knowledge of soils for the next generation.

Your challenge is both simple and complex. Pinpoint soil problems and problem areas so that when the International Union of Soil Science presents its report on the state of global soil resources at future Congresses, national leaders will listen and respond. Providing direction and encouraging action, using your unique education and experience, will enable the global community to better manage soils to sustain and increase food and fiber production.