Only 100 harvests left in UK farm soils

[CFSKate]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/25/treating-soil-like-dirt-fatal-mistake-human-life

Thanks for posting. Very interesting. Also very depressing :-(

I do love George Monbiot, I've just finished 'Feral' and that has a lot of interesting ideas in it.
But he is on the extreme edge of conservation and rewilding and ecology, so although he's always worth listening to, you will find other writings that are more middle ground.
Eco-warnings are depressing because it takes so long for anyone other than enthusiasts to get their arses into gear and do something about it, and you're nbattling against very wealthy interests that don't want change or sistainability if it inconveniences them or lowers profit.

This presupposes that all UK farmers are idiots and don't plough any organic matter back into the soil to enrich it. Which is rubbish. This article seems to be referencing farming examples in rainforest areas and large commercial farming of the scale seen in the US. I'm a tenant on a large (several thousand acres) farm in the UK. The land is reinvigorated by the farmer on an annual basis with a mix of many tonnes of horse muck, from the large livery yard on the farm, and many more tonnes of slurry (cleaned sewage product, which is rich in nutrients) which is shipped in by the truckload from the local treatment plant. The soil is rich and productive, and crops show no sign of diminishing.

Farmers in Australia have been direct drilling seed for years, I think the last time dad ploughed was in the 80s. Coming from Oz, I wouldn't worry too much, you'd be surprised how well farmers can adapt. However, it is worrying the huge companies coming in buying up land and not caring for it...

Yes, we have a working wood near here, we went on a class trip and one of the children asked how long it'd been a working wood. 800 years.
Sustainable management. Not just destruction.