A new article in Scientific American makes the case that declining soil quality and increasing dependence on crops bred for size and transportability — rather than nutritional value — makes today’s grocery-store produce significantly less nutritious than the greens (and reds and yellows and purples) your grandparents ate.  Looks like good soil = better crops, both when it comes to quality as well as quantity. Just what you’d expect. But the story as written is a bit too much of a downer. The drops in vitamins and minerals the authors note are disquieting, true. But the unspoken good news is that we can quickly bring the nutrition back if we get down in the dirt and work on  improving soil quality (through proven methods like soil conservation, crop rotation, and improved fertilizers) and work toward breeding more nutritional value into our crops — like this project is doing in Africa.