Soil in the UK - all you need to know

Tuesday 13th April 2021

Getting on with the soil health assessment report that I need to write. I learnt a lot today about the state of our soil in the UK. 72% of the land in the UK is used for agriculture, the total croppable area is about one third of that and 50% of that is used for cereals. The cost of soil degradation in the UK in 2015 was £1.33 billion - made up of soil erosion, soil compaction and loss of soil organic matter. It is a combination of many things - heavy machinery compacting the soil, lack of crop cover at times of the year leading to soil erosion and loss of soil organic matter because of erosion and animal grazing. This is a really interesting report produced each year in the UK - Agriculture in the UK 2019 (publishing.service.gov.uk) - well worth reading. And this one The state of the environment soil (publishing.service.gov.uk). You will find everything you need to know about soil in the UK - why it is so important and what the current state is. While it makes for some sad reading it seems that we are more aware of the issues and what we need to do to remedy them - better late than never!