ClientEarth response to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee's inquiry on soil health

Soil health plays a vital role in supporting thriving ecosystems, improving air and water quality, reducing GHG emissions and preserving national food security. Healthy soils can reduce reliance on artificial fertilisers and chemical pesticides, reducing agricultural inputs with win-win benefits to the environment and public health.

Across the UK, there are currently no regulations specifically designed to protect, restore, or monitor soil health, and no agreed policy framework for improving soil health, despite the importance of soils in delivering a range of public goods.

A comprehensive national soil strategy enabled by new soil specific legislation could clarify these issues and set out a roadmap to protecting existing soils, improving soil data monitoring and restoring degraded soils. This will not only support the UK Government in meeting its ambitions on soils but many of its other domestic and international commitments on the environment and public health.