ABSTRACT
Igbo people, one of the three major
tribes of Nigeria, recognise the place of soil in life and have stylishly and
uniquely deployed soil to speak in proverbs that depicts maturity, wisdom,
identity, environmental management and good home-training. Such strategy for an
enduring communication has gone global and should be preserved. The substance
of soil resource for food security, human health, fertility and plant
Nutrition, poverty alleviation, land use planning, sustainable development and
degradation control, remediation and reclamation, land use change, history,
philosophy, and sociology of soil science, justified the declaration of the
International Year of Soils by the United Nations in their Sixty-eighth General
Assembly of December 20th, 2013, where they also recognized December 5th as World
Soil Day. The author pays tribute to the phenomenal role of the soil resource
in the social, behavioural, agricultural, and environmental life sciences. Some of the Igbo proverbs show-casing relevance and diverse application
of soil are discussed.