Professor Richard Goodwin of Cranfield University has this week published a RASE sponsored report on the state of soil health. He says that wet summers over the last few years and the passage of heavy machinery have together damaged soil stucture. He suggests climate change will bring about more of the same and that this will lead to permanent damage to soil stucture.
There is undoubtedly some truth in his analysis. Soils have been saturated several times in recent years and damage must have been done as farmers have been forced to enter wet fields to harvest crops. It is also true that drainage has been neglected since grants to help fund it came to an end. There are wet patches in many fields that would have had attention by now if the grants had continued.
But to say the nations soils are all deteriorating and will soon become unproductive seems to me to be an exaggeration, especially just after a harvest that, by universal consent, produced record yields.
Yes, of course our land would benefit from a dry time during which to sub-soil and break up pans and those patches of wet land need to be re-drained. But I really don't believe we are facing the scale of national disaster Prof Goodwin alleges. Indeed his main motivation seems to be to attract more funding for his specific sector of research into soils.
Again, I don't deny that that would be desirable. I am on record as calling for more funding for research into all aspects of agricultural production. Its just that I feel the emphasis of this report was a bit distorted and too negative.