THE FERTILITY OF VOLCANOES

Volcanoes are a danger to nearby inhabitants, but they can also be a method of subsistence.

Volcanoes provide fertility to fields as well as building materials and technology.

In the field of agriculture, the ashes contain nutrients that turn the soil into fertile places. This is well known to farmers on the slopes of Vesuvius, facing the Bay of Naples, where they can claim to have the best tomatoes in the world.

But in less commercially exploited areas such as Italy, there are coffee or cocoa plantations, seeds and legumes in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico and other regions of South America, with productions that are astonishing for their quality and taste.

One of the foundation’s projects is to promote volcanic agriculture in both South America and Africa, the latter being in an even more critical situation.

On a material level, volcanoes provide very useful elements such as pumice stone which is used to make mortar in construction and to polish metals.

The perlite is used to make ceramics and in horticulture.

The diabase and crushed basalt are used in roads, as ballast for railways, in granules for roofing or in breakwaters.

Each volcanic area and terrain is studied to analyse the possibilities of exploitation, as each part of the land is different, and just as it has different needs, it also has different possibilities.