By Jordan King
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The price of groceries has been a major talking point this year, as Americans reel from years of inflation and after U.S. President Donald Trump campaigned on promises of lowering the cost of food before he took office in January.
But many everyday groceries have continued to rise in cost, including meat, poultry, fruits and vegetables, and bakery products, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the U.S. Department of Labor in September.
There are multiple reasons this is happening, but the “prevailing problem is the pricing structure on many consumer goods is formed through a domino effect which includes costs of production, shipping, stocking, and everything in between,” Alex Beene, financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee, previously told Newsweek.
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But a major, and often missing, part of the conversation should be the quality of America’s soil, Save Soil, a global campaign started by Indian yogi and mystic Sadhguru, advocates have argued.
“Whether they know it or not, Americans are feeling the effects of soil degradation at the checkout line,” Praveena Sridhar, Save Soil’s CTO, told Newsweek.
“The more drought erodes crop yields, the more families pay for everyday foods, including the centerpiece dishes of the holiday season,” she added.
Essentially, Sridhar argues that when soil is damaged, it cannot hold water as well, making farms more vulnerable to droughts and floods.
Farmers then have to spend more to grow less food, which pushes prices up for stores and shoppers.
In total, across society, America pays up to $85.1 billion a year for the degrading quality of its soil, SaveSoil estimates.
The Price of Groceries Has Increased
The price of groceries rose by 2.7 percent over the 12 months ending in September, according to the last CPI’s “food at home category.”
Meats, poultry, fish and eggs rose by 5.2 percent in the same period, while cereals and bakery products rose by 1.6 percent, fruits and vegetables rose by 1.3 percent and dairy products rose by 0.7 percent.
NBC News’ grocery-price tracker shows the average national price of eggs is down 58 cents compared with a year ago, while chicken breast is up 22 cents, fresh ground beef is up 94 cents, orange juice has risen by $1.15 and bacon is up 5 cents. Bread prices, meanwhile, are down by about 5 cents.
On top of the higher prices, more than three-quarters of consumers have noticed shrinkflation in stores this fall, according to a November survey carried out by the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability (CFDAS), at Purdue University, Indiana.
Soil Degradation In America
Among many other functions, soil makes most food production possible by helping store carbon and nutrients, according to SaveSoil.
In the United States, soil is battling erosion, “particularly across intensively farmed croplands where unsustainable agricultural practices continue to accelerate land degradation.”
Indeed, the state of America’s soil is such that the amount of carbon dioxide released from U.S. soils is roughly the same as the annual emissions from about 75 million cars, according to SaveSoil analysis.
Today, the Midwestern Corn Belt, which is responsible for 75 percent of the corn and 60 percent of the soybean production in the United States, according to a 2021 research paper, has lost around 52 percent of its carbon-rich soil, SaveSoil said in its Secure Soil Safe Life report.
Across the U.S., hotter and drier conditions are forcing farmers to water their crops more often—setting up and running irrigation systems can cost up to $160 per acre each year, according to 2023 estimates from Science Daily.
“In many regions where soil degradation is at its worst, irrigation is now essential just to maintain yields,” SaveSoil told Newsweek. “It is rapidly becoming one of the most expensive pressures on American agriculture, squeezing margins and ultimately feeding through into higher food prices for the consumer.”
What Is The Solution?
Despite the condition of American soil, the United States is also cited as an example of soil recovery in the Secure Soil Safe Life report.
After severe degradation took place in the 19th and 20th century in Georgia, “widespread practices, primarily through federal programs and the conversion of these degraded lands to managed forests (such as loblolly pine plantations), have for the most part controlled this acute erosion, stabilized the soil, and allowed for ecological recovery, demonstrating that even extreme degradation can be reversed,” the report says.
Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture via email for comment.
One farm in Hawaii has made soil regeneration one of its main priorities – Common Ground.
"By minimally disturbing and covering the soil with organic matter and incorporating rotational animal systems into our diverse plantings, we foster the abundant growth and resilience that only an intact soil system can provide," Common Ground Director of Agroecology John Parziale told Newsweek.
"As we walk our guests through the abundant agroforests, the foliage and fruits naturally capture attention, yet we take the time to touch them down to earth, moving away the mulch in the understory to reveal soil creation happening quietly in real time," he said.
Save Soil's report includes a Soil Security Framework, "a practical model for protecting and restoring the world’s soils," which "reframes soil from an agricultural variable to a strategic resource underpinning food," which its members are advocating for.
Soil scientist Leigh Ann Winowiecki, who is global research lead at Soil and Land Health, told Newsweek: “Over 40 percent of the Earth's surface is degraded. It is time to act together and bend the curve on land degradation and incentivize and support farmers, pastoralists, land managers to invest in their soil.
“Degraded land is a big emitter of greenhouse gasses, and this is why we must invest in improving the health of our soil. Soil can sequester three times more carbon than the vegetation above ground. It’s important that when we talk about forests, we are talking about the soils they grow in.”
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