For most people, the soil underfoot is tread on without a second thought, and its continued health is the last thing on their mind.

But for Tseke Nkadimeng, a farmer, businessman and yoga practitioner from Dullstroom, the need to address the critical nature of soil has become the motivating factor for a nine-month long journey.

In July last year, Tseke committed to walking 10 000 kilometres across all nine provinces in South Africa as part of his Walking for Soil initiative. This great sacrifice, he hopes, will highlight the urgent need to address the degradation of our soil.

Every great journey begins with a single step, and Tseke’s first step began at his farm in Dullstroom on the 27th of July last year, with his first destination being Mchadasdorp. However, Tseke's adventure actually began several months earlier on a trip to India.

"I was really taken by what happening there in terms of the improvement of the inner part of the human being, and that strengthened my resolve to do whatever it takes to work towards the improvement of humanity,” he explains.

Tseke aims to raise awareness about the crucial importance of cultivable soil to our food supply and deleterious impact of soil degradation. He is also hoping to motivate the South African government to take the appropriate actions to ensure soil rejuvenation.

The need to do so is startling. Currently, 52% of agricultural soils are already degraded. The lack of organic content turns soil to sand, which has a far-reaching impact on food production, resulting in less food being able to be grown and less nutrient fruits and vegetables. This in turn can affect people’s health in a variety of undesirable ways, and those in poorer or developing countries tend to be affected the most.

It also fosters greater water scarcity, while enabling floods and droughts. Degraded soil increases loss of biodiversity, and soils that are not revitalised can have devastating impact on accelerating climate change.

According to ConsciousPlanet.org, if the world's soils are not revitalised, they could release 850 billion tonnes of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, which exceeds all of humanity's emissions in the past 30 years combined.

Therefore, soil protection is intrinsically linked to addressing climate change and part of the response to a changing environment and to safeguarding our natural resources. 

That's not all. Failing to address the soil degradation crisis has a socio-economic cost. These include a loss of livelihood for farmers, while the need to migrate from arid land could send more than a billion people fleeing to other countries in the next 27 years.

Governments need to act, which means creating and implementing effective, soil-sensitive policies. The good news is that progress is being made on that front, at least in some regions. At the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture held last  year, the ministers from 68 countries, along with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, committed to soil protection.

There, they promised to institute a soil health law for the EU, which would bring legislation for soil regeneration in line with legal protections for air and water. The policy around the health of soil is currently less easy to define in South Africa and some other countries though.

In a bid to address the need to push saving the earth's soil to the top of other governments' agenda, yogi and mystic Sadhguru created a global movement called Save Soil. Its main aim is to bring together people from different corners of the globe to compel their governments to institute national policies and actions toward increasing the organic content in cultivable soil.

That movement was the catalyst for Tseke's journey. Backed by a support team, he has been criss-crossing into a variety of towns and villages and having conversations with grassroot organisations about the great need to protect the soil and stop degradation. He notes that reaching these places by walking enables him to connect with and raise awareness amongst more people across various walks of life.

These have included the mayor of small towns, farm managers starting a permaculture project, schoolchildren and beauty queens, organic farmers and the heads of tourism departments. There have also been well scheduled encounters with radio DJs and chance encounters with families and individuals. Along the journey, he has also had many knowledge exchanges with various local Kgosi and tribal authority representatives who showed great enthusiasm for his cause.

This array of personal connections has been complemented by social media, where Tseke has been chronicling his experiences and conversations.

Tseke's journey hasn't been without its challenges. After more than 220 days of walking, he acknowledged that the pain in his legs and feet became difficult to ignore. 

But every journey must come to an end, and Tseke will be arriving at his final destination – Gauteng, in the next week, and will then share some thoughts of his further plans.

On the cards is another walk. Along with some of the volunteers of Save Soil and supporters, that is scheduled to Pretoria for a possible meeting with the president about the Save Soil effort.

There, Tseke along with others who harbour hope of saving our soil, and all it affects, will ask those in power to take their first step as well.

TSEKE’S JOURNEY IN NUMBERS (interesting and funny facts):

Day on the road: 245 daysKilometres covered to date: 8 682kmTowns and villages traversed: 1800Provinces touched: 9 provinces so far Countries touched or borders visited: 7Pairs of Shoes used: 9 T shirts distributed: 1500Pamphlets distributed: 3000Stickers distributed: 3000Meetings held: 78Schools visited: 36-Radio Interviews: 31TV Interviews: 2Newspaper articles 16Walkathons held: 6Signatures collected: 6000

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Malema Seroba
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