AfricaPress-Tanzania: On Saturday, the world marked World Soil Day (WSD), which is celebrated each year on December 5 since June 2013 to focus on the importance of healthy soil and advocating sustainable management of soil resources.
For Tanzania, this international event is very important for it gives fresh impetus to the country’s industrial economy agenda. It also coincides with the 5th Tanzania’s Industrial Products Exhibition launched by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa at Julius Nyerere Trade Fair grounds in Dar es Salaam on Friday.
We say that WSD gives fresh impetus to the industrial economy agenda because healthy soil is not only central to the sector of agriculture in terms of producing raw materials for the sustainability of agro-industrial development, but also to food security, human sustenance and job creation.
This year’s theme is “Keep soil alive, Protect soil biodiversity” through which the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) appeals to world governments, civil society organisations and other stakeholders and individuals to focus on the importance of sustaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being.
It is by encouraging people across the world to engage in improving soil health that we can fight against soil biodiversity loss which threatens global food supplies and safety. The coronavirus pandemic adds the burden to food insecurity due to the fact that it halts food supplies due to lockdowns imposed in some countries to minimise the effects of the pandemic which has affected world economies.
It is important that we protect soil health because it helps to mitigate climate change effects which continue wreaking havoc on the world in terms of severe weather patterns, unreliable rainfall, global sea level rise, floods and heat waves. All these pose a threat to human, animal and plant life and microbial communities.
The government has been encouraging Tanzanians to engage in modern farming by planting high yield crops and adhering to best agricultural practices. This is meant to improve productivity, crop yield, food security and people’s livelihoods which we cannot ignore.
It suffices to say that WSD has a loud message to Tanzanians today even more than before because as it is often said if we want nature to care for us we must first care for it – that is we must improve our positive interaction with nature. The theme “Keep soil alive, protect soil biodiversity” speaks by itself for its relevance to us cannot be overemphasised.
So, let us play our role of being part of world solutions and not part of world problems for we won’t solve them if we create them.
