Soils are under pressure from current farming practices, and the challenges are only increasing with the growing demand for food production.
Soils are under pressure from current farming practices, and the challenges are only increasing with the growing demand for food production. Threats to soil health include loss of organic matter, loss of biodiversity, soil compaction from large machinery and, not least, loss of soil itself due to erosion.
"We are at a crossroad; we need to do something if we are to preserve European and global soil resources. It is a paradox that on the one hand soil is part of the solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and at the same time 60-70% of Europe's soil is not doing well. It is therefore imperative that we have better monitoring of soil quality," says Professor Mogens H. Greve from the Department of Agroecology.
Ambitious climate goals cannot be achieved without increased focus on soil. Similar to the ambitious Danish climate targets, the European Commission has set several concrete goals to prevent further soil degradation and to combat climate change. The targets include zero emissions and the planting 3 billion trees by 2030.
Read more at: Aarhus University
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