"In American farm country, a grass-roots movement is spreading, a movement to keep more roots in the soil. (Not just grass roots, of course; roots of all kinds.) Its goal: Promoting healthy soil that's full of life.

I met three different farmers recently who are part of this movement in one way or another. Each of them took me to a field, dug up some dirt, and showed it off like a kind of hidden treasure.

'You can see how beautiful that soil [is],' said Deb Gangwish, in Shelton, Neb. 'I'm not a soil scientist, but I love soil!'

'You can pick it up and it smells like dirt,' Bryce Irlbeck told me, as we stood in a field near Manning, Iowa. 'You can go on a lot of arms in Iowa and the dirt doesn't smell like dirt anymore.'"

Dan Charles reports for NPR's All Things Considered April 9, 2018. [2]