Black people have had a sacred relationship to the soil from as early as ancient Egypt. Cleopatra had declared the earthworm sacred, recognizing its importance to soil fertility. No one was allowed to harm or remove an earthworm. As a result, Egyptian soil was remarkably fertile. For centuries, women in Ghana and Liberia have combined different types of waste - ash and bones from cooking, by-products of handmade soaps, and harvest chaff - to create African Dark Earth. This has high concentrations of calcium and phosphorus, and 200 to 300 percent more organic carbon than soils from elsewhere in the region. The depth of the black soil is a measure of the age of a town. When colonial governments in northern Namibia and southern Angola tried to force Ovambo farmers off their native land by offering equivalent plots with supposedly better soil, the farmers refused, knowing that they had invested heavily in their soil. They knew that fertile soil was nurtured over generations through "mounding, ridging, and the application of manure, ashes, termite earth, cattle urine, and muck from wetlands." It was black gold. --- Source: [[Reference Notes/All We Can Save]]