Soil - resource is in danger

Peter Edling - Head of Agricultural Department of Swedish Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry

In this speech soil is regarded as the substrate in which we grow the green plants, with the help of which we collect the energy of the sun in benefit of mankind, not as a support of any other use. The matter described in the title of this meeting, "Environment protection of agrosystems" is of utmost importance.

My Australian farmer friend looks out over his land and says, in forty years time this might be dessert. My German farmer friend looks out over his land and says, the probable rotation here is winterrape - winterwheat - sugerbeats - building ground. In both cases different ways of overuse of the land is a threat to agricultural use of the soil. What strengthens the idea of the soil as a threatened asset is the fact that agricultural soils in many countries are regarded as an asset that has not to be cared for, taken for granted and just to use for ever.

The more pleasant it is to consider the symbol of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, the Roman goddess Ceres. On the picture here she stands with a sheaf of wheat in her right arm, symbolising the good harvest. The shape of her body indicates that she is pregnant, symbolising fertility. Her left hand is resting on the plough, symbolising the work providing the good harvest. As we know, the working parts of the plough are the knife, the share and the board. The other English word for the knife of the plough is coulter, from the Latin culter, that we recognise in the word culture. What is important to realise and underpin is that without agriculture no other culture, as we know it in the urbanised world, will exist. Other forms of culture, which we probably not are prepared to put in full practise, would dominate.

Having come this far in my speech, I cannot resist to make a short comment on Swedish soils, as they differ very much from the soils in this area. From pedological point of view Sweden is a young country. Sweden is created from the millions of year old primary rock ground, mainly granite and gneiss but also calcareous sediment rocks, and from ice and water. The inland ice left southern Sweden thirteen thousand years ago. The most northern parts of the country where free of ice only six thousand years ago. An important concept is the so called highest coast line. Under the weight of the inland ice the level of the land was somewhat 500 m. below present levels. This meant that when the ice retreated a lot of what now is land was the bottom of the see. The highest coast line is the imprint of the sea shore of that time, which at its maximum is about 280 m. above today's sea level, less in the southern parts of the country.

Above the highest coast line, so called ice lakes excluded, moraine soils are dominating. The ice grinded the primary rock ground into a mixture of coarser and finer textured soil, morain. Moraines are the prevailing soil type in Sweden. Where the moraines are evenly fine textured agricultural use of the soil is possible. Otherwise the moraines are the soils of the coniferous forests that to more than 50 % cover Sweden. The dominant rock ground, granite and gneiss, produces coarse textured moraines with influence of fine sand and sand. Clay is rare in these soils. An exception is where the primary rock ground is of sediment calcareous type, where fine textured fertile moraines with basic reaction were created. In river basins fine textured sediments occurs providing good opportunities for agriculture.

Below the highest coast line sediment soils dominate in the lower parts of the landscape. When the ice withdraw the land under the surface of the sea bordering the ice was covered by soil, in the top layer mainly clay, which was deposed from the eroding water leaving the ice in a system of rivers. The coarser material in the ice rivers deposed near the edge of the ice shield, the finer material more far away and the colloids, fine clay, evenly on top of the sea bottom. When the land rose, relieved from the pressure of the ice, waves eroded the finer material from the shores, which once more was dispersed into the water and finally deposed in the lower parts of what at the time was the sea bottom and now the fertile clay sheets in the landscape. That means, in principle, that below the highest coast line primary rock ground or moraines shows up in hills and heights, coarse textured soils close to the moraines, fine textured soils in the lower parts of the landscape and finally lakes, streams or peat soils in the lowest. This also means that in most parts of the country a field is not textured the same way in the one end as in the other.

By the end of the ice time the withdrawal of the ice edge was so quick, that sedimentation of fine textured soils where of little importance. That means that clay soils are rare in the northern parts of the country. Here finer textured soils mainly occur in river basins.

The dominant part of Sweden is still rising out of the sea. In the most southern parts there are no or diminutive negative movements in vertical direction. In the Stockholm area the land rise is some millimetres per year and in the far north almost a centimetre. This means that a boat house at the top of the Baltic Sea built by grandfather, very well may lay more than just some meters from the shore today.

The most common clay mineral, produced from the granite and gneiss rock ground is illite. From the calcareous grounds montmorillonitic clays are formed. The illite clays want cold winters in order to crack and crumble by freezing, the montmorillonites are less dependant on that. If cold winters are going to be less frequent this may provide complications to management of the illite dominated clay soils, which are prevailing.

When it comes to soil types the humid climate and the material created by the primary rock ground mainly produces podsols, brown soils and where water is in excess, organic soils. In the utmost north tundra soils occur.

Typical annual precipitation is about 600 mm, more in the west and slightly less in the east. In combination with cold winters when evaporation is neglible this produces a humid climate. Annual mean temperature alters from about +8 C in the south to -4 in the north. The length of the vegetation period varies from about eight months to just three in the far north. Climatic changes may alter this and we may see semi arid soil types form in the future as well as seeing the tundra disappear.

Swedish soils are not at the moment seriously threatened. A natural degradation is going on due to the humid climate, acid rain and the origin of the soils in form of acidification and leaching of nutritients. So far this can be compensated for. Unfortunately the losses collect in the Baltic sea, which suffers from unwanted fertilization. A special threat to agricultural soils occurs in the form of infrastructure taking over agri- and sylvicultural land use.

Anyhow, back to soils in general, according to authoritative informants, the world acreage of agricultural soils that historically have been abandoned is of about the same magnitude that the acreage we use today. Whether this is entirely true or not, this means that vast areas once of agricultural use have been lost! The theory of the nature around us as a result of action, not necessarily of human origin, and reaction has taken its toll.

In general the threats to soils are physical, chemical and social. Physical threats are for instance erosion and flooding. Among chemical threats are salinisation, malnutrituion and poisoning of soils. Social threats are in general connected with the fact that soil is regarded as a free asset, in another word, neglect. Probably the last factor is of most importance. With promotion of science and management the former threats can in many cases be overcome. With increased demand of agricultural commodities, for food, energy, raw materials for industrial use, simple like cotton or sugar beats and advanced for phytochemical industries, the importance of healthy soils will increase, climate change unregarded. Climate changes will emphasize the need of care of the soils. The outcome of neglect will worsen.

Climatic change provides a diffuse threat. Nobody knows what the outcome will be. A lot of discussions are carried out about how to stop climatic change. Efforts also must be made how to adapt to climatic changes and extreme weather. The carbon dioxide is already there and will take a long time to be sucked up by plant kingdom and oceans, if ever. Once again the responsibility to take action lies on the shoulders of politicians, organisations and individuals. The other alternative is neglect, leaving the subject for the future.

At the moment some very interesting and positive trends can be identified. The awareness of importance of climatic changes is increasing. The FAO and World Bank are taking an awakened interest in agricultural production, with focus on rural development. The EU has produced a suggestion for a strategy for soil protection. These themes are great achievements.

The great question is what should political systems, organisations and individuals do. The best answer, I suggest, is to fill the political circle with leadership. To a great extent the political circle only reacts, identifying something that is wrong, leading to action, implication and effects. The effects usually to some extent are wrong, what is wrong is sooner or later identified, and so the circle goes on. In a way this is good and the strength of democratic systems. On the other hand if there is no will and no visions diffuse powers like outbreak of illnesses, market fluctuations, influence of casual political leaders, religious movements and so on will be the driving power of the circle, which is a catastrophy.

It is very easy to say that the political circle must be filled with leadership, it is more difficult to positively fill it with leadership leading to progress. The marriage between science and open discussion is the answer. Where the open discussion of scientific findings is prevented things have a tendency to go wrong or delay development. In this part of Europe I guess the Lysenko era is a striking example. Mendel and Nägeli, Friedman and Einstein are also examples of how authoritative personalities can lay a wet blanket over expansion of knowledge.

The first thing needed for advancement is an innovative environment. This means not only that ideas must be allowed to be discussed and tested. It also means that there has to be a sense for every things proportion and limit, as well as a feeling of what is common good and an acceptance of open discussion. A remembering of the fact that the nature acts with action and reaction is highly advisable. The sad fact is that most problems are in our own heads. That on the other hand positively means, that also the solutions are in our own heads. The heads must just be put to work.

The second thing needed for advancement is undisturbed option to keep objectives. In order to be able to keep objectives sustainable financing is necessary. Experiment and observation must be allowed to be the fundament, control and verification of theoretical work in the office and by the computer. This is obvious when we regard the sciences of medicine and astronomy. When success has been achieved, theory, observation and experiment have gone hand in hand. It is desirable that this also refers to agriculture.

A beautiful example of the importance of sustainable financing as well as patronage for efforts on a complicated and time consuming object is the work carried out in the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston by Francis Moore. The goals concerned transplantation surgery, leading not only to a Nobel price, but to a number of scientific and practical breakthroughs, like hart transplantations. The efforts concentrated on a few objects. The economical and technical resources were limited, but the trust of the financers was not limited but continuous over the years.

An important factor when it comes to solution of any problem is identification of the owner of the problem, which I regard as the third thing needed. If land ought to be drained, fertilized and limed the future custody of the land must be known if progress will take place. If future utilization of the investment is not secured, the investment is not done, or done under protest, which produces unsatisfying or non lasting results, if any. The difficulty for us is that ownership of erosion, flood, salinisation, eutrophication, loss of biodiversity and carbon dioxide emissions mostly are undefined, diffuse or not present. With a world soon inhabited by eight or nine billions, all with a reasonable longing for at least a half good life, this question has to come to a solution.

A matter that bothers me is the fact that a number of phenomena, carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, world population and so on, having kept stable or only slightly expanded up till about one hundred years ago now have exploded in an exponential growth. In general exponential growth in biological systems also is followed by exponential decline. When it comes to carbon dioxide in the air and number of storms or floods this would be a good thing, but when it concerns human population it is not good.

It is difficult to find a descent way of giving a verdict of the time we live in, efforts and failures included. When it comes to future evaluation concerning our treatment of the biosphere, I see two conditions that hopefully will display, reversibility and biodiversity. If we are unsuccessful we will leave our soils salinised, flooded, eroded, leached and poisoned. In the bad case the generalists will dominate flora and fauna, nettles, wild oats, craws and rats. If we are successful, soils, flora and fauna will have own capacity to reverse to a more or less virgin situation if we leave.

Almost certainly we will have to use our soils more intensively in the future, as previously mentioned. The pressure on them will increase. More cleverness will be needed for their care, management and improvement. The best measure of our competence in this respect, is if we, despite intense use of soils, flora and fauna, can advocate and make room for development of biodiversity as well as maintain the system flora-fauna-soil reversible.

Regarding the last century, enormous progress have been made concerning human knowledge and human possibilities On the other hand human decisions of very destructive character have been made. A good question in the mirror is, how could it happen, why did they not do anything? There are a number of good reasons for this. One is that when standing in the mud, it is difficult to get out, and you have to save what can be saved. Another is that when a process is going on, it is, concerning what is known, hoped and believed at the moment, extremely difficult to recognize where it will end. I am referring to the previously mentioned theory of the political circle as well as the theory of the nature as a result of action and reaction.

I hope that in a hundred years time the question , "why did they not do anything" will not arise. I hope that the future about the years to come once will say, "they had sound knowledge, which they made use of, they where humble, they where cooperative and they could make decisions. They worked for benefit of the common good!"

The founder of modern Soil Science was a Swede, Johan Gotschalk Wallerius (1709 - 1785, Uppsala). Anyhow Swedes believe this. In 1761 he published the book "Agricultura fundamenta chemica", the first work that regarded the soil as an individual object. As a matter of fact Wallerius lived at the side of the most famous Swede ever, Carl von Linne. Among other things they competed about a professorship in Uppsala, a competition that Linné won.