Monday 6 September 2021

Why is soil conservation important?

It takes 200 – 400 years to create 1 cm of new soil; it takes around 3,000 years to make a soil fertile. 

Soil is therefore considered a non-renewable resource: once it has been destroyed, it is lost forever. 

humanity must now produce more food in the next four decades than we have in the last 8,000 years of agriculture combined
Countries can withstand coups d’état, wars and conflict, even leaving the EU, but no country can withstand the loss of its soil and fertility. 
In 2014 Sheffield University researchers said that UK farm soils only had 100 harvests left in them, and a year later a UN spokesperson warned that at current rates of degradation, the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years.
 A recent study warns that soil erosion will increase because of climate change:


Aggregate Industries' proposal to quarry Straitgate Farm has prompted renewed concerns from Natural England about the storage of soils – topsoil, subsoils and overburden – soils that currently form best and most versatile agricultural land. These concerns have not been addressed. The Devon Minerals Plan states "a proposal affecting the best and most versatile land should provide for the restoration of the land to its former quality." Click on the soils label for more detail.
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