What can society do to reverse the agricultural soil pollution?

1 Answer
Feb 20, 2018

If people are concerned.....

Explanation:

Agricultural soils are under risk due to many factors. Some soils are degraded physically because of urban sprawl and loss of (upper layers of) soils due to erosion.

To address these issues, soil conservation (by law and by erosion control) is a solution.

Some soils are polluted due to extensive use of chemicals (such as pesticides, fungusides, or other biocides). The use of chemicals must be controlled. If possible the use of chemicals must be stopped (please read Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring".

Some soils loss their fertility due to biological activity. If there are unfavorable conditions in soils, soils loose their biological activity (such as nutrient loss). So control of this issue is also important.

Society must be an educated one to preserve agricultural soils. They should buy and prefer organic (not industrial) food. They must search where food comes from and under which conditions they are produced/processed.

People should not buy houses that are built on agricultural areas (maybe these areas were fertile a couple of years ago). There are other concerns too. The world population is 7 billion and 455 million right now (as of February 20, 2018) and it is increasing. If we hit 9 billion (around 2050s) we will have a very hard time to find agricultural soils to feed this population.