Paper short abstract:

Keeping soil fertile is one of the main goals for human beings. This paper analyzes folk technologies related to soil protection in the context of keeping food production safe by using natural resources in the soil with a goal of keeping the soil fertile for future generations.

Paper long abstract:

The misuse and maltreatment of soil is one of the main dangers facing mankind’s future. The rapid growth of industry using a model that consumes nature and natural resources (in particularly land previously dedicated to agriculture) has put all of global society at risk and in a dangerous position.

Current studies on the use of natural plants for fertilizers and pollination related to keeping a balance of biodiversity currently suggest that keeping soil fertile using natural plants rather than using dangerous chemical fertilizers will be a successful model because it uses only technologies and practices which are friendly to nature and, additionally, because it takes into consideration the future society’s development and the goal of sustainability.

In the past, folk cultures developed unique data and technologies (on the local level) that were quite effective and useful for using natural resources sparingly. For example: Russian peasants used (in pre industrial period) plants for fertilizing the soil and practiced crop rotation to allow arable land to recover for later use. This paper will focus attention on traditions and customs of folk cultures and the techniques they developed which have been used for studying nature and collecting unique data useful for the sole purpose of preserving and sustaining nature for future generations. Special attention will be paid to problems of ecosystem, faced by folk cultures and how their results of their efforts can be supported by and applied to life today keeping the goal of sustainability in mind for future generations.