Journalist and political scientist Ute Scheub and permaculture designer and geographer Stefan Schwarzer have made an extremely valuable contribution to overcoming the global ecological crisis.
In their new and thoroughly researched book, Gesundheit beginnt im Boden [Health begins in the soil], Scheub and Schwarzer present the latest findings on microbiomes in a clear and understandable format. The book is a revelation of previously little-known microbiotic connections in ecology, agriculture, animal welfare, and human health. Several experts from various disciplines were involved in the writing of the book, which contains a number of interviews and an extensive bibliography, as well as fascinating photographs of microorganisms. In the last few years, microbiome research has led to a paradigm shift in medical and ecological thinking. A mere twenty years ago, it was still thought that “a healthy organism is a sterile organism.” Today, we now know that all human beings are colonized by myriads of bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea, and other microorganisms that are indispensable for the health of our body, soul, and spirit. Microorganisms present us with a universal network of life, a primordial biosphere connecting all living beings, through which the countless organisms on Earth are interwoven in a complex, multi-layered way.
A vast symbiotic connection is being discovered that previously seemed unimaginable. The fact that all lifeforms on our planet are related to each other via the single family tree of evolution was already a groundbreaking discovery in biology. But now, the understanding that plants, animals, and humans are also genetically and functionally intertwined via the worlds of microbiomes is one of the most revolutionary discoveries in contemporary science. What do the genes of the meadow herb microbiomes that we ingest through a cow’s milk or the bees’ honey do in our brains?
Protecting Microbial Diversity
Global health is much more than just a well-intentioned eco-slogan. The concept shows us the limited scope of a scientific method based upon linear biomechanisms. Over the past 150 years, analytical research has broken down natural phenomena into their smallest elementary particles, so that we’re now in danger of drowning in a sea of unrelated data and facts. “We have completely dismantled the world, and now we have the problem of not being able to put it back together again,” physicist Hans-Peter Dürr once remarked. Despite an exponential increase in factual knowledge and the accumulation of gigantic amounts of data, our ecological and health problems are not getting any smaller. On the contrary, rising numbers of cancer, allergies, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, metabolic disorders, and mental and neurodegenerative diseases across the globe require a new, systemic way of thinking. All of these diseases are linked to a dramatic decline in microbial diversity. According to the concept of planetary boundaries, the loss of genetic integrity and diversity is the most serious and risky of our current global problems. Biodiversity is the decisive factor for the health and resilience of ecosystems, whether in the macroecology of nature or in the microecology of our intestines. The destruction of nature on a large scale affects us through the impoverishment of our intestinal microbiomes. Besides all the toxic environmental chemicals, industrialized agriculture is the primary culprit: pesticides, artificial fertilizers, antibiotics, and seed standardization are largely responsible for the continuous decline in microbial diversity and thereby also for the loss of vitality and robustness of our agricultural soils, from which we obtain 95 percent of our food.
Soils are our greatest resource for preserving microbial diversity. This diversity continues through the food chain and into our intestines. But it’s not only agricultural monocultures that threaten the life-sustaining principle of diversity on our planet. In the economy, culture, science, and media landscape, monocultures oriented solely toward economic logic are becoming increasingly widespread across the globe. The steadily rising cancer rates are a reflection of the illusory utopia, indeed ideology, of unchecked growth. If we don’t succeed in transforming from quantitative to qualitative growth, the “quiet death” will continue.1 One can only hope that the content handled in this book will find its way into school and university curricula. This is about more than just bacteria. The diversity and dynamism of bacteria are a fundamental expression of our own vitality.
Book Ute Scheub and Stefan Schwarzer, Gesundheit beginnt im Boden: warum die Gesundheit allen Lebens von winzigen Mikroben abhängt. Alles ist verbunden: Mikrobiom, Boden, Pflanzen, Tiere & Menschen [Health begins in the soil: Why the health of all life depends on tiny microbes. Everything is connected: microbiome, soil, plants, animals, and humans] (Munich: oekom, 2025).
Translation Joshua Kelberman
