Contemporary agriculture faces a challenge on which the future of the planet largely depends: supplying a growing population by making sustainable use of natural resources essential to guarantee long-term food security.
In a context like the current one, where climate change and the excessive exploitation of resources put the stability of ecosystems at riskadopting sustainable practices to maintain healthy soils should be positioned as a priority for humanity at a global level. However, the data show a very different reality in which The degradation has not stopped growing in the last decade.
As revealed by the report “State of Soils in Europe 2024” approximately a quarter (24%) of the land of the European Union are currently affected by water erosionmainly on farmland. The document indicates that erosion amounts to 1,000 million tons per year and predicts that this phenomenon will increase between 13 and 25% by 2050, which means that Within 25 years, half of the soils in the community territory will be damaged by this problem to a greater or lesser extent.
The European analysis indicates that agriculture is mainly responsible of wear and stresses that unsustainable water erosion affects approximately one third (32%) of agricultural land due to intensive practices such as mechanical agitation or excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, which generate associated problems such as nutrient imbalance , already present in 74% of the land intended for cultivation.
But also alert of the worrying degradation that other ecosystems are suffering, such as the peat bogs. These wetlands act as important carbon sinks but if they deteriorate, they can release stored gases back into the atmosphere. It is estimated that 50% of European peatlands are degraded and many of them have been irreversibly damaged.
Outside the EU, the situation is equally serious, especially in Ukrainewhere military activities have caused significant soil destruction. It is estimated that more than 10 million hectares of the 60 million hectares that make up the country have been degraded due to the Russian invasion. The report warns that recovering all this damage may take decades or even centuries.
In Türkiyeapproximately 1.5 million hectares of land present salinity problemsa circumstance that can affect both agricultural productivity and the health of ecosystems. and the Western Balkans have reported more than 100 contaminated or potentially contaminated sites due to mining and industrial activitiesalthough at the moment the true magnitude of soil contamination in these areas is unknown.
Impact on production and the economy
Beyond the environmental impact, soil degradation also has important consequences for food production. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that around 95% of food comes directly or indirectly from the land, and warns that soil degradation reduces global crop production by 10% every decade.
On an economic level, this problem is not without repercussions either. The decline in agricultural productivity and the costs related to mitigation and adaptation have an economic cost that the World Bank estimates at 300 billion dollars. In the European Union alone, land degradation costs 50 billion euros annually or, in other words, 112 euros for each European, as stated in a study published by the organization Save the Soil.
New legislation
Addressing soil degradation is vital to achieving the environmental, agricultural and climate objectives of the EU, which is promoting actions that help reverse this situation. Among them is the Soil Monitoring Law which plans to create a global monitoring framework that allows identify potentially contaminated places more accurately and, at the same time, promote sustainable management and sanitation.
Likewise, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) includes Strategic Plans for the sustainable use of agricultural land with a series of mandatory and voluntary measures that contribute to this end. For the period 2023-2027, 47% of European agricultural land (compared to 15% in the previous plan) will receive support for actions to improve soils or prevent their degradation, including water erosion.
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