William Albrecht was not only a distinguished scientist and brilliant scholar; he was also a true visionary and committed humanitarian. He was still chairman of the Soils Department and a familiar name in the College of Agriculture when I first arrived on the University of Missouri campus in the fall of 1957. I recall a friend being somewhat offended because Professor Albrecht seemed to question the intelligence of people like him who been raised on food from the “worn out” soils of south Georgia. We students weren’t aware at the time of the larger controversy that surrounded Albrecht’s work linking the health of soils to the health of animals, including people. While president of the Soil Science Society in 1938, he had written in the Yearbook of Agriculture “A declining soil fertility, due to a lack of organic material, major elements, and trace minerals, is responsible for poor crops and in turn for pathological conditions in animals fed deficient foods from such soils, and mankind is no exception.”
The instructor in my beginning soils course stuck pretty close to the physics, chemistry and biology of soils. I don’t recall him ever mentioning Albrecht’s work linking soil health and human health. Perhaps he did, and I just don’t recall. Or perhaps he didn’t want to endure the professional criticism Albrecht endured for venturing beyond the narrow bounds of his academic discipline. The University had plant and animal scientists who were studying the health of plants and animals and an entire medical school studying the health of people. Professor Albrecht was admonished to restrict his observations and conclusions to the health of soils and crops and leave questions regarding the health of animals and people to others.
Perhaps his most controversial and most important study was his review of World War II era dental records of 70,000 U.S. sailors. He linked the health of sailors’ teeth to the health of soils in their native regions of the U.S. In those days, people for the most part ate foods grown in home gardens, on local farms, or at least grown in their respective regions of the country. He concluded, “If all other body irregularities as well as those of the teeth were so viewed, it is highly probable that many of our diseases would be interpreted as degenerative troubles originating in nutritional deficiencies going back to insufficient fertility of the soil.” With the end of World War II, Albrecht called for a major national initiative to restore the health and fertility of America’s “worn out” soils.
Instead, the nation’s agricultural priorities shifted to producing more agricultural commodities and producing them more efficiently in a quest for cheaper food. Albrecht anticipated that the growing reliance on commercial fertilizers to increase productivity would degrade soil health, which in turn would diminish animal health and human health. He was particularly concerned that the overemphasis on nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash (N, P, & K) would lead to the depletion of trace minerals, such as manganese, copper, boron, zinc, iodine and chlorine, which are essential to both plant and animal health. He wrote “N P K formulas, as legislated and enforced by State Departments of Agriculture mean malnutrition, attack by insects, bacteria and fungi, weed takeover, crop loss in dry weather, and general loss of mental acuity in the population, leading to degenerative metabolic disease and early death.”
Albrecht ventured into economics in the late 1950s, at about the same time I discovered the discipline of agricultural economics as an undergraduate. He wrote, “The costs of growing healthy livestock and healthy people do not fit themselves readily into our economics where costs and earnings must always be matched in monetary values (dollars). We are slow to realize that good health is not a purchasable commodity. Health of plants, of livestock and of humans via proper nutrition… will not submit to solution by monetary manipulations.” Over time, he became increasingly concerned and outspoken about the potential negative impacts of profit-driven farming practices on the health of the land. He wrote: “We are slow to study the importance of soil fertility to the quality of food, for this is not yet to our economic advantage in the marketplace.”
After retirement, as an emeritus professor, Albrecht continued to explore and write about the link between soil health and human health. In 1966, he pointed out that the health of the soil affects the nutrient balance between proteins and carbohydrates in both feed and food crops. He concluded only healthy organic soils with the proper balance of macronutrients and micronutrients could produce the complete proteins necessary for good human health. He distinguished between the “grow foods” grown on healthy soils and “go foods,” which were filled with carbohydrates for energy but lacking in the complete proteins needed for growth and health. “Go foods” make humans fat; it takes “grow” foods to keep humans healthy. I doubt Albrecht would be at all surprised by the epidemic of obesity and other diet related health problems confronting Americans today.
These few references provide but a brief glimpse of Albrecht’s work linking soil health and human health and barely hint at the enormous body of less controversial work that brought William Albrecht to the pinnacle of his profession as a soil scientist. He didn’t present his conclusions as proof, but instead as compelling challenges to soil scientists, agricultural scientists, and scientists in general. He presented what I call the Albrecht hypothesis that human health is inseparable from soil health. This is not a proven fact but a proposition or hypothesis that has yet to be thoroughly tested, at least by the respected research institutions. Albrecht didn’t claim to have the final answers regarding soil health and human health. He suggested it would take at least a half-century to unravel the mysteries he had begun to explore.
Unfortunately, few scientists since have had the courage to venture outside of their academic disciplines to explore the broader implications of their work for society and humanity. Many consider themselves to be soil scientists, plant scientists, animal scientists, medical scientists or economists — period. Albrecht knew he needed a basic understanding of all these fields if his work as a soils scientist was to fulfill his public responsibility to society and humanity. His work reportedly was dismissed by the academic community because he refused to restrict his work to soil science and he eventually was forced into retirement. Today, American society may well be suffering the ecological, social, and economic consequences of the failure to explore Albrecht’s hypothesis linking soil health and human health.
When I ventured into agricultural sustainability in the late 1980s, I discovered that Albrecht’s stature among those in the sustainable agriculture movement was higher than his stature among agriculturalists at the peak of his academic career. He was and still is considered to be among the best of a small group of soil scientists who have contributed anything of real value in restoring sustainability to American agriculture. Other soil scientists have since taken on the task of exploring soil health and sustainable productivity. However, Albrecht’s work still represents a voice of authority on all matters related to soils for many farmers, even though he is still controversial among academic soil scientists. For many sustainable farmers, The Albrecht Papers, a series compiled and edited by Charles Walters of Acres U.S.A., is the bible on all matters related to soil fertility. Volume 8 is but the latest in that series. The lasting value of Albrecht’s work has been validated for many by the restored health of many soils, crops, farms, and farm families who have followed the “Albrecht method” of soil management.
Though still unproven, the legitimacy of the Albrecht hypothesis linking soil health and human health also has been validated by more than a half-century of American history. A French contemporary of Albrecht, André Voisin, paraphrases the Albrecht hypothesis as: “Animals and men are biochemical photographs of the soil.” If we Americans are biochemical photographs of the soil, we are the picture of a nation whose food is grown in increasingly unhealthy soils.
The declining physical health of Americans is perhaps most obvious in the growing epidemic of obesity. Obesity is not simply a matter of personal inconvenience or embarrassment; it is closely linked to a number of diet related diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and a variety of cancers. Recent statistics classify two-thirds of adults and nearly one-third of American children and teens as obese or overweight. Since 1980, the number of obese adults has doubled. Since 1970, the number of obese adolescents ages 12-19 has tripled and the number of obese children ages 6-11 has quadrupled. According to a 2010 report of the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation, F as in Fat; How Obesity Threatens America’s Future, the tendency toward obesity has continued unabated in spite of a host of programs mounted by government and nonprofit organizations to combat it, the latest being President Obama’s White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity.
In terms of economic costs, obesity related illnesses are projected to claim about one-in-five dollars spent for health care in America by 2020 — erasing virtually all of the gains made in improving public health over the past several decades. Health care costs in America now consume more than 17% of the total GDP or economic output, nearly twice as much as in 1980 and more than twice as much as the costs of food. If current trends continue, health care will claim more than one-third of all U.S. economic output by 2040. Obviously, there are multiple causes of obesity and other diet-related diseases, including sedentary lifestyles. However, one significant cause might well be decades of preoccupation with economic efficiency with declining soil health, animal health, and human health, as Albrecht anticipated.
Some recent scientific studies have begun to confirm that an agriculture driven by economic values has depleted the nutritional value of the nation’s foods. A particularly revealing study was published in the Journal of American College of Nutrition in 2004. It compared nutrient levels in 43 garden crops in 1999 with levels documented in historic benchmark nutrient studies conducted by USDA in 1950. Declines in median concentrations of six important nutrients: protein -6%, calcium -16%, phosphorus -9%, iron -15%, riboflavin -38%, and vitamin C -2% were observed — even when measured on a dry weight basis.
Other studies have since found similar results showing diminished nutrient density of foods over time.
Some of this loss of nutrients may be due to changes in food processing and distribution. However, numerous studies have shown significant reductions in the nutrient density at the farm level associated with increasing use of modern yield-enhancing technologies — fertilizers, pesticides, high plant density and irrigation. This so called “dilution effect” apparently is well known among plant scientists, although rarely mentioned in relation to diet and health outside of organic circles.
Organic farming provides a convenient contrast to conventional agricultural practices. A review of 97 published studies by The Organic Center comparing organic and conventionally grown food indicated that “on average” organic foods are more nutritious than conventional foods. Conventional foods often contained more macro nutrients — potassium, phosphorus, and total protein — but organic foods were consistently and significantly higher in vitamin C, vitamin E, polyphenols and total antioxidants, which are frequently lacking in American diets. Admittedly, some of the studies were inconclusive and others favored conventional foods. Farms can be certified as organic after refraining from use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides for only three years. It may take decades of organic farming to fully restore the chemical and biological health of “worn out” soils.
Compelling evidence in support of the Albrecht hypothesis also can be found in USDA statistics documenting long-term consumption patterns in America. During the first half of the twentieth-century, as people became less physically active, they ate fewer calories. Americans were consuming roughly 10% fewer calories per person per day in the late 1950s than in early 1900s. Per capita calorie consumption leveled off during the 1960s. In the early 1970s, the number of total calories in the average American diet began a persistent upward trend, while physical activity obviously continued to decline. Between 1980 and 2004, total daily calories per capita from all sources, including alcohol, increased by 21%. The logical consequence is the alarming increase in numbers of Americans who are overweight or obese.
Why did Americans eat less as they became less active during the first half of the century but eat more as they became even less active during the second half of the century? The human species obviously didn’t evolve that much over a 100 years, but the food system most certainly did. The over-consumption of calories closely parallels the industrialization of the American food system, including the industrialization of agriculture, which was driven by economic efficiency. The increase in consumption was not simply a response to lower food prices, as the percent of income spent for food dropped more from 1939 to 1969 than from 1969 to 1999. We appear to be seeing the consequences of an agriculture driven by a quest for economic efficiency rather than the health of the land and the health of people — as Albrecht predicted.
In summary, the credibility of the Albrecht hypothesis linking soil fertility with human and animal health has withstood the test of time and has become even more compelling with the rise of obesity and the related decline in human health. It is quite fitting that Acres U.S.A. would choose this time to publish this new volume of The Albrecht Papers linking soil health with human health. This new volume provides a solid conceptual and analytical foundation for Albrecht’s conclusions linking soil health and human health, as well as a collection of papers linking soil health specifically with the health of farm animals.
This volume includes some of Albrecht’s early analyses of geographic patterns of soil health and human health. He attributed the diminished fertility of soils in different regions of the country to leaching of minerals in high rainfall areas and depletion of organic matter by tillage, particularly in regions with higher temperatures. He pointed out that human populations were able to expand beyond areas of higher natural soil fertility to more marginally fertile soils as chemical fertilizers became available to maintain crop yields of the poorer soils. Although crop yields were maintained, or even increased, through fertilization, the nutritional value of crops produced on the less naturally fertile soils declined. The dominant crops produced within regions also changed in response to declining natural fertility to crops that allowed farmers to maintain total tonnage per acre of production. Invariably, the nutrient values of the new crops were inferior to those previously produced as natural fertility declined. The result has feed and foods crops higher in carbohydrates but lower in the complete proteins essential for growth and health of animals and people.
In this volume, Albrecht emphasizes that: “Every kind of creation starts with a handful of dust, or with the five percent of vegetation, and finally of our bodies, that is the ash.” The rest is made up energy from the sun linking carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen from the air. The former he referred to as biosynthesis, the latter photosynthesis. Photosynthesis produces the carbohydrates essential for quick energy, with excess energy stored as body fat. Biosynthesis produces the proteins essential for the growth of strong muscles and bones — essential for good health. The “handful of dust” from healthy soils is also essential for secretion of the hormones that regulate various human functions, including metabolism, growth and development, tissue functions, and psychological mood. With the depletion of natural fertility, production methods have relied increasingly on photosynthesis to produce high yields while neglecting biosynthesis, which is necessary for the nutrient-dense crops essential for the growth and health of both farm animals and humans.
This volume includes a number of papers linking soil health with the health of farm animals. Albrecht believed that livestock are the best soil chemists. He observed that animals in the wild are able to select a healthy, balanced diet from the variety of plants available to them. Each plant species has a different nutrient potential with its actual nutrition levels additionally affected by the quality of soil in which it grows. Wild animals selectively choose plant species higher in potential nutrient density and plants of the same species growing on soils with a healthy balance of macronutrients, micronutrients and biological organisms.
Albrecht observed that domestic livestock have this same capacity as wild animals for choosing healthy diets from crops grow on healthy soils. Grazing livestock selectively avoid plants growing in soils that are “worn out” and soil areas that are either deficient in or oversaturated with specific nutrients, such as areas around manure patties. His classic example is the consistent preference of cows for grass on “the other side of the fence,” along roadways and railroads, where the soils have not been depleted by cultivation. He believed the only way scientists could accurately assess the health of soil was to assess the health of animals that ate the crops grown on the soil, including the health of people who ate the animals that ate feed crops grown on the soil.
He and other scientists of his time observed that when livestock are fed pre-mixed rations, they would eat excess amounts of some nutrients in order to get their minimum requirements of others. If we humans have this same capacity, perhaps we are a nation of people who are “overfed” but “undernourished.” Using Albrecht’s terms, Americans may be overeating “go” foods only because they don’t have ready access to “grow” foods, resulting in too many calories and too few of the complete proteins essential for good health. The sedentary lifestyles of many Americans obviously contribute to the growing epidemic of obesity. However, excessive eating and the resulting excessive weight obviously contribute to sedentary lifestyles. Many Americans may be overfed and undernourished because their foods are produced on unhealthy soils.
I recently participated in an extended interview for a Home Box Office video-documentary series dealing with the issue of obesity: “The Weight of the Nation.” The producer of the segment dealing with agriculture seemed to be intrigued with the Albrecht hypothesis. She even convinced the producer of the series to send a videographer to record my presentation of the “Albrecht Lecture” at the University of Missouri. However, the final version of the documentary contained no mention of the potential link between declining soil fertility and the growing epidemic of obesity. Apparently, the “more-credible scientists” on their panel of experts convinced the producers that any link between soil health and human health was negligible, or at least too controversial to defend. I mention this only because Albrecht frequently addresses the failures of modern scientists to appreciate the public health implications of soil health.
In this volume, Albrecht writes about those who approach soil science as the “industrial manipulation of dead materials” to gain economic advantage. “People who approach agricultural research in this way have lost sight of agriculture as a biological demonstration by forces of nature, where man is more a spectator than a manager in complete control of soil and produce.” He continues, “They seem unaware that the soil of our planet is a complex material development through many centuries, having the power of creation, not only for plants, but for everything that lives, moves and has being upon the earth.”
Albrecht explains the lack of scientific interest in his hypothesis linking soil health and human health as follows: “The life of the soil is not attractive. The death of it is no recognized disaster. Hence, it may seem farfetched to anyone but a student of both the soil and nutrition to relate the nutritive quality of feed and foods to the soil.” Apparently, the increasing specialization and narrowness of scientific disciplines has left us with few if any students of both soil and nutrition. Regardless, as Albrecht points out, ignorance of a fact does not negate its validity: “To say that we don’t believe there is a relation between nutritive values of feeds or foods and the fertility of the soil is a confession of ignorance of all that is to be know of this fact and is not a negation of it.”
Apparently, The Albrecht Papers will have to serve the needs of those of us who are concerned with both agricultural sustainability and human health a bit longer. This new volume is certainly a timely and worthy addition to the others. I hope the thousands who read it will spread the word about the logical connections among soil health, animal health, and human health until it grows into a public demand for fundamental change that is as compelling as it is necessary. That change must begin with a restored respect among both farmers and scientists for the importance of soil health. From this respect, a commitment to restoring the natural fertility and productivity of the soil must arise as a means of restoring health to humanity. Perhaps then, William Albrecht also will receive the respect he so richly deserves as a distinguished scientist, brilliant scholar, true visionary and committed humanitarian.
— John Ikerd, author of Small Farms are Real Farms and Sustainable Capitalism