David Montgomery On ‘Growing A Revolution’

A worker removes the contaminated topsoil at a private house’s garden in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan on Feb. 4, 2016.
A worker removes the contaminated topsoil at a private house's garden in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan on Feb. 4, 2016. AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi
A worker removes the contaminated topsoil at a private house’s garden in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan on Feb. 4, 2016.
A worker removes the contaminated topsoil at a private house's garden in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan on Feb. 4, 2016. AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

David Montgomery On ‘Growing A Revolution’

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David Montgomery — a University of Washington professor, ecologist, and geomorphologist — says we must take drastic measures to preserve the world’s topsoil, necessary for a sustainable food supply. He was a MacArthur “Genius” fellow for “making fundamental contributions to our understanding of the geophysical forces that determine landscape evolution and of how our use of soils and rivers has shaped civilizations past and present.” Montgomery authored the books Dirt: The erosion of civilizations, which became a documentary, and The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health. His latest book is Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life. We sat down with Montgomery while he visited Chicago to speak at the 2018 Good Food Expo. He’ll tell us why he believes we must “rethink the Green Revolution,” to not only “feed the world,” but also “nourish the world.”