Hope from the Biosphere: Thriving Soil Ecosystems are a Solution

Many of us face concerns or anxieties over news of fires, floods, heatwaves, and other looming global environmental problems. This webinar will discuss how thriving soil ecosystems can help alleviate future disruptions and heal the damage done to our precious biosphere.

Dr. Adam Cobb will explore our ‘tiny allies’ in the soil, using the example of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi to highlight how soil food webs create the conditions for life to flourish. Didi Pershouse will discuss how landscapes function as wholes, and how the soil sponge is the vital infrastructure that regulates local climate and makes life on land possible. She will present how soil biology, plants, and other forms of life are the essential workforce of our biosphere. For example, fungi entangle soil particles to improve aggregation, healthy soil’s sponge-like ability to soak up water and provide resilience to flooding and drought.

The biosphere contains wonderous organisms, such as mycorrhizal fungi in soil. If we learn to work with these tiny allies, rather than against them, there is hope for a future where life is protected, ecosystem health is restored, and human needs are provided for, without degradation of our planet.

Panelists Bios

Dr. Adam Cobb's passion for agriculture emerged during his several months of volunteer work on organic farms in New Zealand. His time in graduate school cultivated a broad vision for the restoration of living soils, as well as the power of research and community engagement to address global food production challenges. After completing his PhD at Oklahoma State University, he spent five years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and University Instructor. He joined the Soil Food Web School in 2021, following his dream to help regenerate soils, improve human nutrition, and heal our planet.

Didi Pershouse is the founder of the Land and Leadership Initiative, and the author of two books: The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities, and the facilitator's manual: Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function. Didi teaches the Soil Sponge Regeneration Workshop through the Soil Food Web School. 

Dr. Elaine Ingham founded the Soil Food Web School after she spent over 30 years working with farmers on six continents to develop her holistic and scientific method of rapidly restoring the soil biome.

Our host, Dr. Adrienne Godschalx, has a deep love for plants, insects, and the interactions between them. She is a Soil Food Web School Mentor and Researcher.

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