The soil: a resource for sustainable agriculture
From food production to raw materials for construction and industry, from regulating the water cycle and water quality to improving our landscapes, from carbon storage aimed at limiting the greenhouse effect to recycling organic materials and contributing to diversity, soil has always played an essential role in our lives. The importance of this fragile, threatened resource is even more paramount today. Research at INRA advances our knowledge of what soil is, how it works in the environment, and how to manage it.
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The importance of soil and soil preservation has risen to the forefront of global awareness. Of late, there have been growing concerns about the availability of arable land and the planet's capacity to meet future demands on food production. Plant-sourced energy has been the source of much controversy. Some claim that biofuels vie with food crops for farmland space, contributing to rising food costs. Livestock farming has also been fingered as a culprit, as it contributes to soil degradation and desertification.
In France, the Environment Round Table ("Grenelle de l'Environnement") has identified the redevelopment of agronomy as a prerequisite for developing agricultural systems that are both productive and green. The need to control soil destruction resulting from the expansion of towns and transport networks was also heavily underscored.
Meanwhile, the European Union continues to pursue its "Soil" directive proposal, with the goal of protecting the resource from the major soil degradation factors identified in the Member States.
Awareness of the finite nature of resources and the planet's fragility as a whole now extends to soil, long neglected in the area of environmental research.
The community of soil scientists has done its part in sounding the alarm by joining forces with the ecological sciences. Soil scientists have brought major issues to the forefront, including the role of soil in climate change and the understanding of biological mechanisms behind soil function.
In this context, by managing the national information system on soils and soil quality, the National Institute for Agricultural Research not only helped France make up for lost time, but also aided in turning it into a European reference in the field. INRA's expertise in agriculture and forestry enables it to analyse the factors behind major risks of degradation, which include erosion, packing, loss of organic material, pollution, urbanisation, and encroachments on biodiversity. Its research on the environment, water resources and atmosphere exchanges gives INRA the possibility of studying the environmental contributions of soil in collaboration with other research communities specialising in water and the atmosphere. Finally, the accessibility of advanced research in plant and microbiological sciences is a major advantage for scientists seeking to understand the complex interactions that hold the key to soil function. Whether in the form of reducing agricultural inputs, limiting pollution discharges, cleaning soils or controlling product quality, proper management of these interactions is one of the best options for progress.
More than ever, our food and our entire biosphere depend on the few decimeters of modified rock that cover our continents. Soil needs to be viewed in a more integral way, where agriculture, food and the environment are tightly linked. INRA is well-placed for this, as it has always maintained a large community of researchers working on these themes. Our dossier, published in 2009, is proof of this.
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