New Soil Strategy - Healthy soil for a Healthy Life
The European Compost Network ECN welcomes the roadmap of the New Soil Strategy, and calls on the European Commission to strengthen its policy by:
- Recognising the numerous benefits for soil from compost application, including carbon storage
- Exploring the best practices and bottom-up approaches to save organics in soil
- Promoting their replication across the EU
The European Compost Network (ECN) highlights that soils are essential ecosystems which deliver valuable services such as the provision of food, energy and raw materials, carbon sequestration, water purification and infiltration, nutrient regulation, pest control and recreation. Healthy soils provide these functions simultaneously, therefore, soil is crucial for fighting climate change, protecting human health, safeguarding biodiversity and ensuring food security.
However, soil health is at risk in Europe and globally. For instance, 12.7% of European soil is affected by moderate to high erosion, causing an estimated loss of agricultural production in the EU of €1.25 billion per year[1]. In Southern, Central and Eastern Europe 25% of soils show high or very high risk of desertification corresponding to about 411 000 km².
The European Compost Network (ECN) highlights in its response the importance of saving organics in soils by closing the biological cycle and returning high quality compost and digestate from bio-waste to land.
The ECN response on the roadmap of the New Soil Strategy can be assessed here.
[1] Cost of agricultural productivity loss due to soil erosion in the European Union: From direct cost evaluation approaches to the use of macroeconomic models. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ldr.2879
For download ECN’s fact sheets: ‘Soil Structure & Carbon Storage’ and ‘Soil Fertility and Productivity‘
Further info on ‘Soil and Land’ can be accessed on the Commission’s website here.