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The writer claims that people often underestimate the role soil plays in our lives.

Choose if the statement is True/False/Not Given

Soil plays a major part of supporting life on earth

Soil is everywhere, in our parks, gardens, farmland, beneath our feet and under our pavements. But this extraordinary and valuable substance is often overlooked and dismissed as ‘dirt’.

We fundamentally rely on soil. It produces 95 percent of our food, be it the crops we eat, or grasses and other plants to feed animals for meat. And this is just one aspect of the goodness of the ground.

“Soil is one of the most underrated and little understood wonders on our fragile planet”, says Professor Bridget Emmett of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, in The Miracle of Soil, a short animation to explain the power of soil and the need to care for its health.

Social distancing has reminded us what a crucial role touch plays in our wellbeing, says social and cultural historian Joe Moran

When was the last time you touched someone you don’t live with? One day last March, probably; you’re not sure of the date. Did you shake hands with a new colleague at work? Did your coat brush against another commuter’s on the train? Did someone bump your elbow and mutter an apology when rushing past you on an escalator? If you’d known that was the last time you’d make contact with the body of a stranger, you’d have paid more attention.

And what about the 8.2 million British adults who live on their own? Many will have gone nearly a year now without so much as a pat on the arm from another person. Touch is the sense we take most for granted, but we miss it when it’s gone. Psychologists have a term for the feelings of deprivation and abandonment we experience: “skin hunger”.