Rational Agriculture

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre has recently published its first ever Soil Atlas of Europe (see the Press Pack and the BBC online report on this). Perhaps the most important thing is that this focusses on the fact that soil is vital, but often comes in for little consideration. The very pertinent quote from the JRC site sums it up well:

"Man … despite his artistic pretensions and many accomplishments, owes his existence to a thin layer of topsoil … and the fact that it rains".

According to the report, there is cause for concern over degradation of soils. As the BBC puts it:

“The major threats to soil quality identified by the atlas are erosion, the overuse of fertilisers and pesticides, the loss of organic content, pollution from industry, the loss of biodiversity, salinity, the compacting of soil by agricultural vehicles, landslides and flooding."

Clearly, soil is important, and there are many factors which can threaten it. But there is an implication in reports such as this that this is all due to "modern" agriculture. In actual fact, one of the statistics quoted is that 75% of land in Southern Europe has an organic matter content low enough to cause concern. On the other hand, soils with low organic matter content in England and Wales accounted for 42% of land in 1995. It is generally recognised that farming in the UK is amongst the most intensive (and productive) in Europe, so clearly intensive farming is not the primary cause.

Indeed, if we moved towards less extensive, organic agriculture, as some would still have us believe is desirable, we would need to keep considerably greater areas of land in good condition in order to produce as much food. The situation is never quite as simple as it seems.

Posted by: Martin Livermore / 12:54 pm