3. SOIL QUALITY

Editor: Will Melling Writers: Bence Borbely, Trevor Chow, Tom Nott, Yang Zuo

3.1 Overview

The fundamental importance of soil health to farm productivity, food security, climate change and public health has been neglected by governments for far too long101. Modern intensive agriculture, practiced in the UK since the Second World War and further incentivised by the CAP, has decimated soil quality102. This is a global issue; almost a third of the world’s arable soils have been lost to erosion and pollution over the last 40 years, and it will take hundreds or thousands of years for these degraded soils to recover naturally103. In the UK, we lose an estimated 2.2 million tonnes of topsoil each year, costing around £45 million per year, of which £9 million is in lost production104. The depletion of soil nutrients results in lower yields for farmers, sometimes driving higher fertiliser use, which in turn encourages further soil degradation and exacerbates the problem105. This form of intensive agriculture is not sustainable in the long term. Recent statements from UK ministers have not been matched by action106. Soil, perhaps farmers’ most valuable asset continues to be degraded by modern agricultural methods. However, the government’s existing soil commitments provide a starting point for a new UK policy framework. The global 4 per 1000 soil carbon initiative aims to increase soil organic carbon by 0.4% each year and the overall aim is for all English soils to be managed sustainably, with degradation threats tackled successfully, by 2030107 . Effective soil management improves soil quality over the long term and would provide multiple benefits or ‘public goods’. These include: reducing carbon emissions and meeting government climate change targets, increasing the productivity of the soil and long-term viability of farming practices, increasing biodiversity, improving water quality in river catchments, and reducing flood risk. All of these benefits make economic sense; they would save taxpayer money in regeneration or mitigation expenses, increase natural capital, and provide sustainable economic growth.

101 The Soil Association, 'The future of British farming outside the EU' (The Soil Association, 20 March 2017) <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/10560/soil-association-report.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021 102 Dieter Helm, Green and Prosperous Land: A Blueprint for Rescuing the British Countryside (Harper Collins 2019) pp224 103 Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, 'A sustainable model for intensive agriculture' (2015) p2 <http://grantham.sheffield.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/A4-sustainable-model-intensive-agriculture-spread.pdf> accessed 4 January 2021 104 DEFRA, ‘Safeguarding Our Soils: A strategy for England’ (DEFRA, 2009) <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69261/pb132 97-soil-strategy-090910.pdf> accessed 4 January 2021 105 The Soil Association, 'The future of British farming outside the EU' (The Soil Association, 20 March 2017) <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/10560/soil-association-report.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021 106 The Soil Association, 'The future of British farming outside the EU' (The Soil Association, 20 March 2017) <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/10560/soil-association-report.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021 107 The Soil Association, 'The future of British farming outside the EU' (The Soil Association, 20 March 2017) <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/10560/soil-association-report.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021

Editor: Will Melling Writers: Bence Borbely, Trevor Chow, Tom Nott, Yang Zuo

3.2 Incentivising farmers to improve soil quality

In terms of policy, Tier 1 should initially reward farmers to improve soil quality, a desired outcome, by establishing sustainable farming practices. This would be alongside the implementation of a pay-to-pollute principle, where farmers would increasingly pay for the carbon emissions and pollution caused by their existing practices, discouraging the use of diesel fuel, inorganic fertilisers, and artificial pesticides (see the pay-to-pollute section). Over the next decade, farmers should be increasingly rewarded through Tier 1 for ‘outcomes’, which can be understood broadly as ecosystem services. Ecosystem services can be understood as benefits human societies derive from the natural environment and healthy ecosystems108 . By 2030, this shift should culminate in natural capital markets being established, with soil quality, and ecosystem services like the resulting carbon sequestration, as valuable natural capital assets which the market pays for. This allows for a decade of continuous improvement, but at an acceptable pace to farmers and with a guaranteed income. However, it represents a long-term shift from government subsidy to market solutions, providing maximum positive environmental outcomes at minimum cost to the taxpayer. By 2030, the establishment of good practices should provide farmers with sustainable, profitable yields from increasingly productive soil whilst achieving the government's long-term commitment to tackling degradation threats. Given the market does not currently adequately reward the delivery of environmental public goods, the ELMS will be an effective way for the government to intervene and utilise public funding to deliver them until they can be provided by natural capital markets109. This should happen until 2030, whilst the mechanisms, platforms and markets needed to value and exchange natural capital properly are developed.

3.3 Soil Improvements in Tier 1

Current DEFRA thinking on Tier 1 is that the Tier should focus on encouraging environmentally sustainable farming, including actions to create environmental benefits that the majority of the farmers could take. This would comprise activities such as planting cover crops and wildflower margins, or other practices which could generate valuable outcomes at scale110 .

108 GC Daly, ‘Nature's services: societal dependence on natural ecosystems’ (Yale University Press 1997) pp. 454-464 109 Dieter Helm, Green and Prosperous Land: A Blueprint for Rescuing the British Countryside (Harper Collins 2019) pp218 110 DEFRA, 'Environmental Land Management Policy discussion document' (DEFRA, 1 February, 2020) <https://consult.defra.gov.uk/elm/elmpolicyconsultation/supporting_documents/ELM%20Policy%20Discussion %20Document%20230620.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021

Editor: Will Melling Writers: Bence Borbely, Trevor Chow, Tom Nott, Yang Zuo

However, whilst some practices which might be rewarded have been mentioned111, there has been no more detail on the specifics of the scheme, payment mechanisms or what the finalised scheme would look like. We therefore propose a suggestion of how Tier 1 of the ELMS could be developed, using the government’s criteria and best practice from agricultural research at Lancrop112. Improving soil quality can create multiple valuable environmental benefits and outcomes and should therefore be a principal aim of Tier 1. Soil improving cropping systems (SICs) are specific combinations of (1) crop types, (2) crop rotations and (3) management techniques aimed at halting soil degradation and/or improving soil quality whilst having positive impacts on profitability and sustainability113 . Tier 1 of the ELMS could incentivise application of these universally, building on existing soil stewardship payments and assurance schemes which incentivise farmers to increase the organic matter of the soil, such as organic and LEAF114 . This is the practice of SICs as outlined by Lancrop:

SIC Component Basic Principle

Crop rotations Long and diverse crop rotations Cover crops Intercropping

Nutrient management Applying manure and other organic fertilisers rather than artificial ones

Effective incorporation of slurry Cover crops, especially nitrogen-fixing legumes Arable crop rotations

Irrigation management Optimal irrigation

Drainage management Maintaining water levels in peat soils Contour ploughing

111 DEFRA, 'Environmental Land Management Policy discussion document' (DEFRA, 1 February, 2020) <https://consult.defra.gov.uk/elm/elmpolicyconsultation/supporting_documents/ELM%20Policy%20Discussion %20Document%20230620.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021 112 Lancrop Laboratories, 'Soil Organic Matter' (Lancrop Laboratories, May 2019) <https://www.lancrop.com/#/analysisSoil> accessed 4 January 2021 113 SoilCare, 'SICS' (SoilCare, April 2020) <https://soilcareproject.eu/images/_SoilCare_biodiversity_factsheet_final.pdf> 114 The Soil Association, 'The future of British farming outside the EU' (The Soil Association, 20 March 2017) <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/10560/soil-association-report.pdf> accessed 4th January 2021