Soil Health

Debate between Rebecca Pow and Mary Creagh

Thursday 17th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I, too, am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I am also delighted to follow my Committee colleague, the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who so ably chaired our inquiry on soil. I was one of the people who persuaded her to hold the inquiry. To many people it might seem a rather odd subject to consider, but I hope that we are demonstrating that we neglect soil at our peril. Soil may not be on your top-10 list of important issues, Mr Bone, but I hope you might change your mind after hearing what we have to say this afternoon and agree that we should all give soil a much higher profile.

The hon. Lady talked about soil and soil contamination, but I will talk about soil in the wider landscape. I hope that some of the ideas in our report will gradually filter into policy, and I am confident that the Minister is listening to some of those views. I am a gardener, I grow fruits and vegetables at home, I was brought up on a mixed farm—such farms treat soil the best—and I have reported on such subjects for many years as a journalist, so I am pleased to be involved in this debate.

Soil is the stuff of life. It is as important as the water we drink and the air we breathe—they are all inextricably linked. Without healthy soils, we cannot produce healthy, sustainable food. Soil is also an important sequester of carbon, as we have already heard, and it plays an important role in climate mitigation. Until we produced our report, many people, even on our Committee, were unaware of that. Soil stores three times as much carbon as is held in the atmosphere, with peat being especially significant. Soil has an important water-cleaning function, as it helps to filter and clean the water as it drains through. Soil also holds water and slows the flow, so it also provides flood resilience. We heard all those things in our inquiry.

I am also a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which recently reported on flood resilience. Soil was highlighted in that report. Treating our soil well and increasing the amount of organic matter contained in it will help to hold water and slow the flow into our rivers, which will ultimately help the nation. Taking more care of the land around us would have a cost effect on the economy, because it would save us money if we did not have to react to massive flooding.

I said at the beginning that soil is the stuff of life. Soil is our lifeblood, and it is alive—many people think soil is inert, but it is not. There are more organisms in 1 gram of soil than there are human beings on the planet. Each gram of soil contains: 1 billion bacteria belonging to 10,000 different species; up to 100 invertebrates; and up to 1 km of fungal threads. A square metre of soil can contain between 30 and 300 earthworms.

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Lady is showing what a brilliant member of the Environmental Audit Committee she has been. I slightly regret that we did not call her as a witness, instead of just as a member of the Committee, because I am learning new things, particularly about fungal threads and water filtration. This is a subject to which Parliament must return.

[Rebecca Pow]

I thank the hon. Lady so much for that intervention. I have talked to many organisations. I literally love soil. It is a fantastic subject in which we all need to get more involved. Darwin described earthworms as nature’s little ploughs. We would not survive without earthworms, because they create the passageways that aerate the soil and allow it to breathe and be healthy, and that allow all the other creatures to go to and fro doing their jobs.

All those creatures are working in the topsoil, directly influencing the food we grow—there is a direct link—yet we understand only 1% of those organisms, which is unbelievable. It is an untapped area. People are getting into it, but it is still so unknown. The hon. Lady mentioned fungi. Trees could not properly uptake nutrients or water without the fungi in the soil, and we would not survive without the trees because they have such an effect on the recycling of the air and all the gases, which is even more reason to look after our soil. That brings me neatly to something I must mention—ancient trees. I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on ancient woodland and veteran trees. Ancient woodland is our most biodiverse habitat, but only 2% remains. Ancient woodlands are like our rain forests, and they are a wonderful microcosm of biodiversity, but with the trees we have to include the soil underneath. We should treat it all as one holistic whole.

The soil and those trees should be protected as we protect our national monuments. They are that significant. I am sure that the Minister is listening, and her predecessor was terribly interested in ancient trees. All the diverse little connections are all the more reason to protect our soil.