Although across Europe and in the UK governments have stepped up efforts to conserve water use, aiming to secure water supplies for farmers, businesses and consumers who may face increasingly scarce supplies as summers become drier, less has been done to preserve soil. Healthy soil is one of the essential tenets of productive, sustainable agriculture and there is a growing awareness that more needs to be done to prevent soil erosion and soil degradation, which would impact massively on productivity.

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Richard Bardgett, Professor of Ecology at Lancaster University who specialises in soil research, has said, "There are few things that matter to humans more than their relationship with the soil; there are many examples globally of where people have mismanaged soil and it has led to the collapse of entire societies."

Problems on the horizon

Despite greater awareness, and overtures made to maintain soil health around the world, many agricultural processes still damage soils. The 2008 IAASTD report, conducted by hundreds of scientists around the world, concluded that 1 billion hectares of soil is degraded around the world. The latest major UK soil study conducted in the UK, which took place in 2009, found that food production is being jeopardised by the erosion of 2 million tonnes of topsoil each year.  

The volume of healthy soil is currently believed to be made up of 45 per cent minerals, 25per cent water, 25 per cent air, and 5 per cent organic material, dead and alive. Worms are an excellent indicator of soil health and their processing of nitrogen is extremely beneficial for plants. However, once soil is eroded, the process is irreversible; good soil takes thousands of years to replenish. Professor Jane Rickson, Professor of Soil Erosion and Conservation at the National Soil Resources Institute, Cranfield University said, "We see erosion as an irreversible process."

Speaking about soil health at the Oxford Real Farming Conference earlier this month, Martin Lane of Field Science Ltd said "The last 50 to 60 years in agriculture have been a vacuum in which soil health has been stripped away." He explained that there is a pressing need to replace not just the traditionally managed nutrients (Nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium), but deal with a wider range of nutrients including boron and selenium to improve all round health, which will lead to better food. He said there is a pressing need for "A more grown-up system that NPK, which is over simplistic."

Discussing the benefits healthy soil has for crops, livestock and humans, just a month after World Soil Day quietly passed many by on December 5th, Mr Lane said that the lack of nutrients in soil can have an effect, not only on the crops grown in it, but on the humans and animals which feed off them, as nutrients are not being passed on.

Studies undertaken by the Medical Research Council and the US Department of Agriculture have shown that, over the past century, there has been a significant loss in the minerals and trace elements in food. USDA data shows that apples have seen their potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and phosphorus levels all fall dramatically in the past 100 years.

Mr Lane recommended ‘remineralising’ soils; by adding minerals in which soil is deficient, essentially trace elements, all round soil health is improved and that this can have a larger impact on long term health than adding fertilisers. Mr Lane said, "Organic farming helps [soil health], but just taking away fertilisers and agrochemicals does not help the soil regain its health fast enough. It’s a slow process."

He said that, through improving the balance of nutrients in the soil, crops can become more nutritious and livestock fed off the land can prosper, resulting in hardier systems overall, which will prove essential in ensuring food security and resisting the effects of climate change. Mr Lane said, "22 to 23 minerals are considered essential to human health. I would venture to say that they all are. The only reason we don’t know this is that we don’t have a deficiency problem."

Also speaking at the ORFC, Neil Fuller, a soil fertility specialist at Soil Solutions Ltd, described the advances which are currently going on in soil science with the aim of developing a more targeted approach; one which will see healthier food being produced whilst impacting less on the environment. He described current fertilisers as "Very inactive, not very efficient; essentially blunt instruments" and explained that proactive, rather than reactive treatments with a wider range of nutrients have a marked effect on maintaining plants’ health and the health of those eating the crop.

UN and research institutions push for change

NGOs, academic institutions and prominent figures within the UN have all warned that threats to soil are jeopardising food security and, according to the speakers at the ORFC in January, the growing volume of their warnings is resulting in moves towards a better understanding of soil science and the implementation of measures to protect soil resources. However, progress has been slow.

Late last year, Jacques Diouf, Director General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, warned of the threat posed by soil degradation and called for countries to speed up their implementation of the FAO’s World Soil Charter; some areas most critically at risk have been slow to adopt the charter.

Furthermore, despite the fact that the European Environmental Bureau, a federation of farming and environmental NGOs has warned that almost ten per cent of Europe’s soil is completely sealed over, member states such as Germany, the UK, and France, the EU’s agricultural heavyweights, have been blocking a European Soil Directive as they argue it would increase bureaucracy, implementation costs and go against their national interests.

Nevertheless, institutes in the UK and internationally (including Cranfield, home of the National Soil Research institute, and the John Innes centre) continue to conduct soil research, monitoring areas at risk of erosion and degradation, and work on ways to protect this most valuable resource.

Steps are being taken to revive soils; soil microbiology is gaining increasing academic and farmer interest. In November, the European Environmental Bureau renewed its calls for the introduction of a pan-European soil directive, stating that soil degradation is costing the EU €38 billion a year in lost production.

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