Soil management in a changing climate

As part of our Land Management Business Resilience project (LaMB), which aims to help farmers and land managers increase their business resilience, Climate East Midlands has helped to organise and deliver a series of six half-day Soil Management workshops, in partnership with the Farming Advice Service and the Environement Agency (Midlands). The workshops were held on host farms near Balderton in Nottinghamshire, Swadlincote in Derbyshire, and near Costock in Leicestershire.

Around 80 participants attended, most of whom were farmers. The workshops were topped and tailed with an introduction from the Environment Agency on their key actions for farmers, advice from the Farming Advice Service on cross-compliance, and a session on business resilience from Climate East Midlands.

The main focus of each workshop was of course on soil management, and at each farm we had at least one soil pit to help us examine the soil structure. To guide us through the soil science and its application, we brought in soil experts Professor Dick Godwin and Philip Wright. The main headlines are:

Common factors causing damage to soils include:

• Poor drainage: This can be due to under-maintained or blocked drains, and/or full ditches leaving the water nowhere to go. The consequences are water-logged soils, run-off and soil erosion.
• The use of heavy equiment: Wet soils compress easily, and heavy equipment can cause deep compaction. Compacted soils make it difficult for roots to grow, reducing crop yield.

How can we increase the resilience of soils?

• Increase the organic matter content
• Maintain/ improve drainage systems
• Use lighter machinery
• Disturb the soil as little as possible

A more detailed summary of the key messages on soil management can be downloaded here.

These workshops have been particularly timely given the Adaptation Sub-Committee's report published in July 2013, "Managing the land in a changing climate". The report identifies soil erosion and reduced organic matter as one of the main risks facing the agriculture sector. Encouragingly, the report also highlights that the changing climate may bring opportunities for the sector as well, e.g. new crops may become viable. Protecting and improving soils is crucial for the sector to be able to take advantage of any opportunities that the changing climate may bring. Otherwise "soil erosion and loss of organic matter have the potential to limit the ability of farmers to take advantage of future opportunities to increase agricultural production." (p33)

Find out more about the Land Management Business Resilience project (LaMB) here.

For more information contact [email protected]