Walkathon draws attention to rapid soil extinction

Vijayawada: Several hundreds of people organised walkathon on the city streets here on Friday in connection with the Earth Day #ConnectWithSoil as part of Save Soil - a global movement that is bringing world's focus on rapid soil extinction.

The walkathon on Bandar Road was taken out to generate awareness about the urgent need to fix the soil that is fast losing its organic content. In their own unique ways, people were seen reaching out and educating public about the cause and need for immediate attention towards dying soil. While some walked applying mud to their body some performed jig on the Soil Anthem. The movement caught up people's interest in a massive way.

"I am standing up for Save Soil as I want to leave this Earth in a better way than I received from my ancestors," said a volunteer.

The clarion call of Save Soil was given by Sadhguru, founder of Isha Foundation, last month and he is currently on a 100-day lone motorcycle journey from UK to India, riding for 30,000 km meeting citizens, leaders and experts to take the message of Save Soil to 3.5 billion people, 60% of the world's electorate. The whole effort is geared towards supporting leaders of all nations to institute national policies and actions towards bringing back at least 3-6% organic content in the soil. The alarm bells are ringing as our soil is facing extinction. According to the United Nations, 90% of Earth's Soils could be degraded by 2050 unless we act now. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) estimated that we only have 60 years of soil left. It also reports that 52% of world's agricultural soils are already degraded. Global movement to Save Soil is thus most crucial in these times, the volunteers say.