With this being the third full week in April, it's once again time to celebrate National Soil Conservation Week.

Jim Tokarchuk is the executive director of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada.

"A healthy soil is number one, biologically active, it's like a living entity of any other kind," he said. "It exchanges gases, it has living organisms in it. It has a cycle of taking things in and putting things out. You look for biological activity."

Tokarchuk notes you can test the health of your soil by burying a piece of white cotton to see if the material breaks down over time.

"Soil Conservation week each year is a platform that allows us to talk to Canadians in a broader way," he added. "We think that's exciting but very important because soil health and soil conservation is really an essential for Canada because of the importance of soil to our economy, to our people, to our environment and to the fact that it produces most of the food we eat and helps to clean our air and clean our water."