Summary
Grocery prices are expected to rise globally as soil degradation, driven by overfarming, deforestation, and climate change, reduces farmland productivity.
The UN estimates 33% of the world’s soils are degraded, with 90% at risk by 2050. Poor soil forces farmers to use costly fertilizers or abandon fields, raising prices for staples like bread, vegetables, and meat.
Experts advocate for sustainable practices like regenerative agriculture, cover cropping, and reduced tillage to restore soil health.
Innovations and government subsidies could mitigate impacts, but immediate action is critical to ensure food security.
It’s no joke: conventional Ag is extremely tough on soils, and depletes soil organic matter, and reduces topsoil thickness though ploughing. Add on top of that contamination from various sources (not just Ag) and the picture is bleak.
No shit. My daughter and husband bought a house built on the corner of a field in Ohio that was farmed for years. You couldn’t get a shovel into the ground there because it was like cement.
Industrial farming is incredibly harmful to the soil. There are other methods that are far less harmful and can actually be beneficial to soil health, the problem is they don’t scale well.
There is a great YouTube channel called No-Till Growers that really goes into some cool farming methods that are much less destructive
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hNyu4_RWGZo
Edit: this is probably a better video and I think it’s in a playlist about soil health. But honestly all of his videos are great
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4aZhevnaLWw&list=PLGMgkMLKOtWv0efQXhQtuu01WfWL5yBDf&index=1&pp=iAQB
I have been doing no plow, no till gardening for over 20 years and it outproduces conventional gardening by a lot.
Conventional Ag is a method, distinguishing it from regenerative Ag etc.
Fair enough, I’m far from an expert