Blog by Ellen Fay, co-founder and co-Executive Director,
Karolina Trdlicova from the James Hutton Institute delivered a thought-provoking talk encouraging the conference to rethink how we communicate about soil health. Drawing on over three decades of climate change communication research, she argued that soil health and climate change are both “wicked problems” – complex issues that cannot be solved once and for all, but must be continually addressed through ongoing social, scientific, and political engagement.
Language is like soil. However rich, it is subject to erosion, and its fertility is constantly threatened by uses that exhaust its vitality. It needs constant re-invigoration if it is not to become arid and sterile.
Elizabeth Drew, author, critic (1887–1965)
The key message was that ineffective communication can undermine even the best science, while effective communication can foster trust, engagement, and meaningful action.
Here are the key learnings from her talk:
1) Fear alone does not motivate action
One of the central lessons was that communicating soil degradation purely in terms of crisis and catastrophe can be counterproductive. While it may raise awareness, it often leads to feelings of helplessness and disengagement rather than action.
Messages about the poor state of soils should always be accompanied by clear pathways for action, research efforts, and reasons for hope. Without this, communication risks producing despair instead of empowerment.
2) Artificial deadlines are ineffective
Karolina showed that dramatic deadlines, commonly used in climate communication, do not lead to sustained engagement. Instead, they confuse and create false urgency.
For soil communication, framing the issue around claims like “we only have X years left” is unlikely to motivate long-term behavioural change and may even discourage meaningful engagement.
3) Caring does not automatically lead to action
Another key insight was the existence of the value–action gap. People can care deeply about an issue but still fail to change their behaviour.
Communication strategies must recognise that structural, social, and practical barriers often prevent people from acting, even when they value the issue – raising concern or awareness about soil health is not sufficient on its own.
4) The Knowledge-deficit model does not work
Karolina strongly challenged the assumption that public inaction is caused by a lack of knowledge. This so-called knowledge-deficit model assumes that if scientists explain their work more clearly or more simply, people will automatically agree and act.
This approach has been shown repeatedly to fail. People’s attitudes are shaped not just by information, but by trust, values, identities, and lived experience. Effective communication therefore requires dialogue, not just simply messaging.
5) Action can come before care
A particularly important takeaway was that engagement does not always start with awareness or concern.
Through examples such as citizen science and community projects where communication is focused on creating opportunities for participation, Karolina showed that involving people directly can build attachment, responsibility, and long-term commitment.
6) The messenger matters
Finally, Karolina emphasised that the credibility of the communicator is central to effective communication as people are more likely to trust and engage with messages when they believe the messenger embodies the values they promote.
Credibility is about consistency between what communicators say and how they live or act; and trust, authenticity, and social positioning all shape how messages are received.
To conclude, effective soil communication must be hopeful, participatory, and trust-based. It should avoid fear-driven narratives, simplistic messaging, and top-down approaches. Instead, it should:
- Recognise diverse publics rather than a single “general public”
- Focus on building trust and credibility
- Encourage action and participation
- Combine scientific knowledge with social understanding
Communicating soil health is technical, social, and ethical task, requiring as much attention to people, values, and relationships as to data and evidence.
Follow the link to read more on this topic of research from Karolina and Roy Neilson (Trdlicova, Neilson, European Journal of Soil Science 2025):
