> If I eat a banana that has potassium in it, it lends to the fact that it took potassium out of the soil. This is true. However the little-known fact is that

> If I eat a banana that has potassium in it, it lends to the fact that it took potassium out of the soil. This is true. However the little-known fact is that healthy soil contains all the "machines" required to break down the abundant insoluble potassium (along with every other necessary element) present in rock particles into plant-soluble fertilizer. This "insoluble pool" contains enough nutrients for literally thousands of years of plant growth, if only the soil life is present to unlock it. The problem is that tillage kills this soil life, and that dead land now requires the constant import of external fertilizer to grow food. Pesticide and fertilizer application also kills these organisms, which out-compete pest species (as mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15515209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15515209). Spraying becomes a vicious cycle for the farmer, and a lucrative cycle for their chemical supplier. In other words, functional soil isn't just an inert "tank" for holding nutrients. It's a two-dimensional factory for converting in-situ rock and air and rain into biomass. This is all explained much better by soil microbiologist Elaine Ingham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag > luckily engineers and farmers are looking at these things more closely now. I would add biologists (including soil scientists, botanists, mycologists, entomologists, ecologists, etc) and indigenous experts to that list.