EU POLICIES FOR SOIL CONSERVATION AND AGROFORESTRY

Panos Panagos

Scientific/Research Officer

European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy

Panos.PANAGOS@ec.europa.eu

Soils provide crucial ecosystem services such as the provision of food, carbon sequestration and water purification. The soil is the largest terrestrial carbon pool, hosts more than 25% of all biodiversity and provides 95–99% of food to 8 billion people. It is a fragile and non-renewable resource that is threatened all over Europe and globally. It takes 100-500 years to “generate” 1 cm of soil due to atmospheric deposition, though this may be lost in few minutes during a heavy storm. The main drivers of soil degradation in Europe are human activities, such as intensive agriculture, drainage, and the spread of persistent pollutants.

About 60-70% of the European Union’s soils are degraded. The main threats to soils include: soil erosion, soil organic matter decline, soil compaction, salinization, decline of soil biodiversity, soil sealing, landslides, acidification, loss of nutrients and soil contamination. The soil sealing definition refers to the destruction or covering of the ground by an impermeable material. Soil loss by water erosion is a major threat in the EU as 24% of land has unsustainable soil water erosion rates (>2 t ha-1 yr-1) with a mean erosion rate at 2.45 t ha-1 yr-1). In addition, wind erosion shows a mean rate of 0.53 t ha-1 yr-1 in arable lands. A soil loss rate of about 12 tons per ha per year (t ha-1 yr-1) is equal to loss of 1mm of soil surface. The mean soil organic carbon content in EU soils is less than 5% while the Mediterranean areas have extremely low carbon content (circa 1%). Moreover, soil sealing is a threat for EU soils as the land take rate is about 539 km2 per year (period: 2012–2018). The loss of high value agricultural land poses an important problem for future food security, as the land take can be translated into potential crop losses. In terms of soil compaction, 23% of EU land has critically high densities. As for local contamination, for a larger area which includes EU countries plus 12 neighbouring countries, Joint Research Centre (JRC) reported c.a 2.8 million potentially contaminated sites. The land degradation costs in the EU are estimated to about 50 billion Euros annually.

Given the European Union’s objective to become the first climate neutral continent by 2050, the European Commission has adopted a series of policy communications for a greener Europe. In 2020, an ambitious package of measures was presented within the Biodiversity 2030, Farm to Fork and Chemicals Strategies, as well as the Circular Economy Action Plan and the European Climate Law, which included actions to protect soils. In 2021, these were followed by the Fit for 55 package, the Zero Pollution Action Plan and the EU Soil Strategy for 2030. All these policies include provisions relevant to soils to achieve the ambitious objectives of the EU Green Deal. The European Commission will propose a Soil Health Law in 2023. Such a legal framework will contribute to granting soils the same level of protection as water and air and radically improve their condition to better provide the ecosystem services that we depend on.

During the last decade, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) introduced conservation measures to reduce soil erosion and enhance soil organic carbon. Among the most important measures for soil conservation, scientists propose conservation tillage, cover crops, grass margins, terraces, crop rotation, plant residues maintenance and contour farming.

Agroforestry is a combination of trees and grassland or trees and cropland. It is a very ancient agricultural practice that is still widely implemented in certain EU countries, and is gaining renewed interest due to its many economic and environmental benefits. It is a dynamic system combining trees, crops and/or livestock on the same area of land in some form of spatial arrangement or temporal sequence. Agroforestry can contribute to climate change mitigation; as it involves more biomass than conventional agriculture; it can store more carbon in plants and soils. Agroforestry practices can contribute to climate change adaptation: the shade provided by trees helps keep the local microclimate in check by retaining water in the soil. They also enhance biodiversity by providing food, shelter and habitat for birds, insects and mammals. In relation to soil biodiversity, agroforestry maintains and restores the topsoil with its organisms (earthworms, insects) and nutrients.

Agroforestry is positively highlighted in many literature findings and has started to be mentioned in some policy frameworks (Common Agricultural Policy, Nature Restoration Law). In the last 10 years, agroforestry has been described as a sustainable practice or recommended as an eligible activity in more than 20 EUCommission strategies, parliamentary resolutions and EU-regulations. In the new CAP, new agroforestry systems (where trees and agricultural crops or pastures occupy the same land) can be considered as measures financially supported for forestry.

Despite its undisputed benefits, agroforestry is still largely unknown to national/ regional policy makers. Therefore, the CAP Strategic Plans proposed by the 27 Member States could include more agroforestry measures. Such agroforestry applications can reduce soil loss, nutrient leaching, improve resilience of farms in case of extreme conditions (e.g. floods, heatwaves) and in general improve soil health. It is the responsibility of Member-States to propose agroforestry measures in their national CAP Strategic Plans, for actual implementation from 2024.