The National Farmers' Union has explained that it is wary of imposing too much regulation on soil protection rules.
The NFU's vice president Guy Smith was responding to a question from Nuffield scholar and organic dairy farmer William Armitage.
He said that British arable farmers are 'killing their soils' and are not doing enough to protect them, with soil mineral levels depleting.
Mr Armitage said: “When you look at the quality of food since the 1940s, it’s dropped by 40 per cent in terms of mineral density.”
“I’m afraid an awful lot of arable farmers have killed their soils, there’s no soil biology and without soil biology we cannot have mineral transfer from the soil to the crop.”
Lower standard imports
Guy Smith said the farming union 'will be the first' to actively encourage farmers to use better soil protection methods and thus minimise environmental impact.
But he said the NFU is wary of imposing too much regulation on the matter because it would encourage imports from countries with lower standards than the UK.
“The impact of that is simply to import more product from parts of the world where they don’t have such stringent levels of environmental regulation,” Mr Smith said.
“That makes no sense to me… I do not want to put a throttle around farmers’ necks.”
'Worrying lack of knowledge'
A report suggests the the UK places little importance on soil, resulting in a 'worrying lack' of knowledge around it.
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agroecology for Sustainable Food and Farming said that although 95 per cent of the UK's food comes from the soil, the political agenda does not reflect this and current policy is insufficient in protecting soil for future generations.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, who led the inquiry panel, said: "Healthy soil is vital both here and around the world.
"Failure to tackle current problems will lead to catastrophic environmental, economic and social breakdown.
"Reversing the loss of soils, along with restoring knowledge and interest in soil, are essential first steps to sustainable food production."
The report says that as the UK population is set to rise to some 70 million people by 2030, the issues outline will need to be taken seriously or the pressure on agricultural system may prove 'devastating'.
