An online center will provide farmers with guidance on how to maintain soil health.
“One-third of the world’s soil is suffering severely due to intensive agricultural activities, climate change, and pollution,” says Ecology and Hydrology Centre UK (UKCEH). Intensive agriculture is leading to a huge amount of CO2 emission into the environment, threatening sustainable agriculture.
Recently, a virtual community center “uksoils.org” has been launched for farmers. This community center will provide them with important soil knowledge and guidance to maintain their land healthy and fertile.
uksoils.org is a group of ambitious researchers and environmentalists to started working together to develop better plans and strategies to safeguard natural resources like soil. Soil is the basic component of agriculture without healthy and fertile soil, the growth of plants will stop leading to decline in food production.
This online center was successfully launched on 4th December 2020, contributing to World Soil Day.
Responsibilities
A major responsibility of this community center would be to inspire state organizations, policy-makers, farmers, and researchers to develop plans and strategies to protect soil and maintain long term fertility.
The basic purpose to create a virtual hub is to gather all resources in one place for ease of agriculturists and ecologists. This resource database will provide farmers with all needed educational information, activities, and guidelines to maintain soil healthy and fertile.
Facilitation
The virtual community center “uksoils.org” will host a series of sessions recommended by farmers, ecologists, and researchers to target the basic reasons for soil damage and solution to maintain healthy soil.
The virtual hub will also provide a forum for the community to share their knowledge and experience and to encourage others to adapt and implement soil improvement techniques.
This hub will also launch regional offices where several soil-related experiments and tests will be conducted to better understand soil condition and composition. These centers will provide their services to local farmers to get them their soil tested and know proper soil solution. Their responsibility will be to design and develop new techniques and technology to maintain soil health.
UKCEH Soil Director Professor Bridget Emmett, who leads the initiative, said: “We often forget the importance of soil for humans and wildlife because of its unfelt presence under our feet. Today, we are here to change this perspective. It is our responsibility together with state organizations to safeguard natural resources for a better future.”
