Intensive agriculture has led to soil degradation in Europe and Great Britain. Experts are calling for soil restoration to reduce climate impacts.

More than 60% of agricultural land in the European Union and about 40% in Great Britain have been seriously degraded as a result of intensive farming. This is reported by The Guardian, writes UNN.

Details

According to the information, experts of the Save Soil initiative stated that fertilization and restoration of agricultural soils can reduce the impact of the climate crisis and provide protection against the deterioration of extreme weather conditions.

This soil degradation changes the water cycle of the earth and exacerbates the impact of the climate crisis in a vicious circle. Exhausted soils, devoid of their natural structure, are not able to retain water in any quantity. 

The Save Soil organization, which advocates for regenerative farming methods, has called for making soil restoration one of the main priorities of climate programs, as well as making changes to agricultural policy and subsidies to encourage this process.

Europe and Great Britain are experiencing extreme situations — scorched fields one month, flooded cities the next. This report clearly shows that our soils are no longer a buffer for us

- said a representative of the group. 

According to the report, in 2022, a third of the EU population and 40% of the bloc's territory suffered from water shortages, while Spain, Italy and Germany also faced catastrophic floods in 2023-2024, the report notes. Groundwater levels have fallen by a third in France, and the UK is likely to experience drought this year, despite record rainfall last year.

According to the UN, by 2050, almost half of the world's urban population, about 2.4 billion people, will face water shortages. Consumers are already seeing price increases for some commodities affected by the climate crisis, including coffee and chocolate.

Last year, a UN study showed that excess salt is already reducing the fertility of at least 10% of the world's land, and another 1 billion hectares are at risk. Healthy soils also store more carbon, helping to offset the impact of fossil fuels.

Soil is a living material, closely related to human and planetary health, and only by working with soil as a living material can we solve global water problems. Let's work with the soil microbiome, not against it - we can also use more than three billion years of evolutionary knowledge

- said Karen Johnson, professor of environmental engineering at Durham University, who was not involved in the preparation of the report.

In the UK, farmers can be paid to protect and restore soils through government programs. However, one of the key programs, the Sustainable Farming Incentive, has been discontinued, and funding for environmentally friendly farming is under threat, amid a Treasury review of spending, leaving farmers in doubt as to whether to invest in changing their practices.

Source - https://unn.ua