Recognizing that soil is one of the essential elements for life, along with water, air and sunlight, organic farmers across the Pacific region will be actively supporting the 2015 United Nations International Year of Soils.<\/p>\n
Through the Pacific Organic and Ethical Trade Community (POETCom), organic farmers and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) will be raising the awareness of civil society and decision-makers about the fundamental role of soils for human life.<\/p>\n
\u201cSoil isn\u2019t something people think about a lot, but it\u2019s the basis for our lives on this planet, from food to housing to clean water,\u201d the POETCom coordinator, Karen Mapusua, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes around 2,000 years for just 10 centimeters of soil to be made through the earth\u2019s natural processes, but according to the University of New Mexico through poor management we are losing about 6.4 billion tons of soil globally each year”<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re going to be able to feed ourselves in the future we have to save our soils. There are over 5,000 certified organic farmers in the Pacific and many more using traditional organic practices that improve soil health and even build soil\u2013 these farmers play an important role in protecting our soils and ensuring food security,\u201d Mapusua said.<\/p>\n
The campaign will include regular articles, info-graphics and YouTube clips available through the POETCom webpage www.organicpasifika.com , which will aim to promote effective policies and actions for the sustainable management and protection of soil resources, as well as to provide everyone with simple things that we can all do to contribute to \u2018soil saving\u2019 and \u2018soil building\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can join the campaign by sharing through your networks the resources and information we will be developing throughout the year, and which will be available on our Facebook page Organic Pasifika,\u201d Mapusua said.<\/p>\n
POETCom is a network of organic farmers and supporters across the Pacific islands region. POETCom works in partnership with European Union and the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the secretariat is supported by SPC.<\/p>\n
For more, visit: www.organicpasifika.com or Facebook\/Organic Pasifika. (SPC)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recognizing that soil is one of the essential elements for life, along with water, air…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2220,42,2221,21],"class_list":["post-192213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-facebook-organic-pasifika","tag-food","tag-karen-mapusua","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}