Soil erosion and water pollution caused by poor farming practices mean land could become too poor to sustain food crops by the end of the century

England must invest £10m a year to ensure its soil is productive enough to continue to grow food by the end of the century, a new report warns.

Soil erosion and the pollution of watercourses is putting the entire £8bn farming industry at risk, according to the study from WWF, the Angling Trust and the Rivers Trust, which warns that failure to act now risks jeopardising future food production and the provision of clean water.

Poor farming and land management practices are causing soil to be destroyed at approximately 10 times the rate it is being created, figures show, costing England and Wales £1.2bn a year. The report puts forward a model for land management where environmental and food production needs are given equal weight to reverse the decline.

Soil quality is increasingly causing concern at a national and global level. In March, the UK government indicated that its agricultural bill, expected to be published later this year, would contain – for the first time – measures and targets to preserve and improve the health of the UK’s soils. The UN has recently warned that the world’s soils face exhaustion and depletion, with an estimated 60 harvests left before they are too degraded to feed the planet.

Q&A Soil Show Hide Why is soil causing concern? Soil is fundamental to agriculture, but it is not a renewable resource: it can take millennia for just a few centimetres to form, but can be washed or blown away in seconds. Soil is under threat as never before from modern farming, climate change, pollution and more. The UN has warned that there could be only 60 harvests remaining before the world’s soils reach the limits of agricultural production. All of this at a time when the world’s population is expanding. Soils are also one of the world’s biggest stores of carbon. Can’t we use fertilisers? Although fertilisers can help restore soils, without sufficient structure or organic matter to hold it together, fertilisers just wash away, running into water courses or the sea where they can create dead zones, or drifting off as ammonia gas. Soils have been around longer than humans - what's changed? Intensive farming methods can harm the soil: heavy machinery compacts soils, making them more vulnerable to flooding. Overuse of soils can also exhaust their fertility, and the landscaping around intensive production leaves soils vulnerable to erosion. Can anything be done? Fortunately, there are various methods of retaining and improving soil health. Fields are often ploughed from the top of a hill to the bottom, which funnels water downhill, washing away topsoil and nutrients. Simply ploughing fields in line with the contours of the land would prevent this. Other techniques include restoring natural features and practising crop rotation. Another much-touted method, “no-till” agriculture, is controversial as it relies on GM crops and chemicals.

The report sets out a nine-point plan for achieving healthy soil and water and argues that a £10m a year investment is “good value for money” against a backdrop of £2bn spent on EU agricultural subsidies and the £1.2bn cost of soil degradation. Brexit presents a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to redirect these farming subsidies for the public good, the authors say.

Immediate investment is needed to reverse the declining health of England’s rivers, with just 14% classed as healthy after being polluted with sediment, nutrients, chemicals and slurry from farming.

The report calls for a fair and effective enforcement regime to tackle the 20-30% of farmers that are reportedly not complying with England’s water protection legislation. This would cost £5.8m a year for a five-year period, it says.

A targeted payment scheme that would encourage farmers to make environmentally beneficial changes in land-use such as taking strategic areas out of rotation would equate to less than £500m a year, according to the report.

It also highlights the “critical” need for a properly funded, locally co-ordinated advisory service to help farmers implement rules and manage the environment. An increased advisory presence in England would cost £3.2m a year, it says.

Tony Juniper, executive director of WWF, said: “Healthy soil is vital for our national security, yet we continue to cause immense damage to it, not only threatening our long-term food supply but also harming our rivers and wildlife. None of this is inevitable though. We could have a farming system that restores soils and wildlife, while at the same time stopping agricultural run-off polluting our rivers. To do this we need not only the right legislation, however, but also robust enforcement and proper advice for farmers, otherwise new policies simply won’t work. The good news is that this will cost only about £10m pounds a year.”