17 Trees, flowers, shells wonderfully evoke Mother Nature in all its grace and complexity. More difficult is to identify it through the soil, so extensive and varied as to confuse ideas. The truth is that we should instead abandon ourselves and our minds upon this first horizon of land, sensationally underestimated because the soil is Mother Nature, and like every parent it cultivates what is good and captures what is bad. In a handful of fertile land there are more living beings than men, women and children on earth. The soil, which occupies about one sixth of the planet, is second only to the oceans (one third) in terms of carbon storage capacity: on what we step there is more than twice as much amount as the quantity present in the atmosphere, in the form of CO2. Soil is a playground that, when operating, can create wonderful things. Billions of polite living expressions, flowing water, growing flowers, emerging minerals. These harmonious life cycles generate and nourish the soil that hosts the roots of plants, supported in their growth by man too. What we commonly call layers are classified by the soil science as horizons. Pure magic. Since man began to cultivate the land, eleven thousand years ago, the grower has become its custodian. Agricultural activity is man's first non-migratory one, and the first step towards our concept of “society” has been taken right from the sharing of the soil. Custodian of this landscape from the very beginning, the grower has the reason and the skills to become also its doctor and engineer. The other option is to continue intervening with a plough on that playground, overturning clods with deep cuts and seeing how long this kind of fun can last – despite knowing that none of us will step on its next layer, because it takes centuries to regenerate. The soil-matter is complex, and the grower needs two input orders: one about what to produce, and we can decide it, the other about how to protect and spread the fertility of his land. The answers that agriculture gives today to food demand generate danger for the soil and social disparity, due to an unbalanced access to that resource. At the same time, knowledge has increased both in research discoveries and in the re-evaluation of ancient conservative techniques, still capable of not losing value. One at a time, Ossigeno will bring them back under the sign of this necessary care, whose application burden we load up on the grower, custodian and soil improver – a profession which we are all tied to, more indispensable than the doctor and the mayor. We must value more carefully the grower, and support him in safeguarding the soil. The first step is always to properly get informed, so let’s cross the ground identifying ourselves with the flow of the tens of thousands of km3 of water filtering through and purifying each and every year. A terrain profile is made up of multiple horizons. The first one, baptized O, is the surface cover, made from decaying organic matter, ranging from tree leaves to compositions of animal or vegetable origin, no longer recognizable to the eye. The second horizon, called A, is the surface one. All the organic matter present here is food and digestion of the countless life cycles inhabiting the layer. Welcome to the humus, so complex and full of life that there are more legends than verities about it. Proceeding from top to bottom, the meteoric water crosses these horizons, dragging minerals and chemical elements with it. This process is called eluviation, and the more the ground is involved, the clearer its color becomes, making us understand that we have reached the third horizon (E), where the loss of minerals moved downwards from the water is at its maximum. At this point of the descent, we go through the B horizon, rich in clays and matter dragged by rainwater; layer that comes into contact with the minerals made available by the parent rock, the D horizon. The soil is a reticulum of paths, some visible to us, others just readable. Billions of life cycles animate these connections by interacting on chemical reactions in order to constantly regenerate. The balance that makes the land fertile is not precarious, it enjoys flexibility and organizations capable of amortizing excesses. It is essential for it to be brimful with life. The organic matter of a soil hosts fundamental elements such as carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen and sulfur. Biodiversity is luxuriantly ensured within the deep brown soil, where those lucky enough to have it in their hands are certainly surrounded by flourishing plants. The mineral component of the soil emerges from the parent rock; our task is to preserve the superficial organic matter, where wonder happens, and to support and protect its continuous rebirth. Due to lack of culture or respect, the soil loses its rules and its living heritage, on account of pesticides and even fertilizers. We are denaturing, believing we are nurturing. Today we are aware of the consequences
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