Albertans can push back global heating by giving back to the dirt beneath their feet, says a renowned soil scientist.

Leigh Ann Winowiecki of World Agroforestry (ICRAF) is set to give the 20th annual Bentley Lecture on Sustainable Agriculture online at the University of Alberta March 9. The annual talk connects hundreds of U of A students with the world’s top agricultural researchers to discuss farm science.

Winowiecki is a soil systems scientist who has studied sustainable agriculture and soil carbon for about 20 years and co-developed ICRAF’s land degradation surveillance framework, which is used worldwide to monitor soil health. She plans to discuss advances in soil health monitoring at the Bentley talk.

Soil is the source of about 95 per cent of our food, yet we’ve let about a third of the Earth’s surface degrade to the point that it can no longer support crops and animals, said Winowiecki, speaking to The Gazette from Nairobi, Kenya, on March 2.

“We have taken for granted the soil beneath our feet,” she said, and not worked to nurture it.

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