Last week’s cafe featured Dawit Solomon, a research associate in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Soil and Crop Sciences Section. It was interesting because I don’t know many people who are focused on studying soil, so it was very revealing to hear about Solomon’s work. The bulk of his talk focused on identifying and quantifying the soil quality, especially in indigenous West African countries, since it’s remarkable how those indigenous countries were able to transform their soil to become more fertile and enriched. We learned a bit about how this process unfolds: it took hundreds of years to build their soil, and it was through constant efforts of adding back bio-organic degradable material, such as animal based organic inputs, charred plants, pyrogenic carbon, cooking byproducts and deposits to allow them to decompose. Thus, this restores the concentration of phosphorus, nitrogen and other valuable minerals and nutrients back into the soil. What I liked most from his talk was how he emphasized the importance of proper soil management and how great of an impact it can have on the future. Soil enrichments not only can help traditional plants grow better, but can also take carbon out of the atmosphere and serve as a climate smart alternative to more conventional agriculture. Solomon even brought a bag filled with repurposed waste that can be used as fertilizer as an example. I think this talk was valuable because it provided really interesting perspectives and alternate solutions for soil enrichment, improving our climate, furthering agriculture, and environmental sustainability. It’s not going to be an easy task, as those indigenous West African countries took centuries to transform and build their rich soil, but it’s exciting to think it’s a possibility. It’s just fascinating to utilize something as seemingly trivial as soil to address future agriculture problem solving.