Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support farmers and growers to improve soil quality.

Firstly, we are focusing on soil in two of the first standards that have been rolled out under the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme in June 2022 - the Improved Grassland Soils and Arable and Horticultural Soils standards. These are available to all farmers in England with arable land and improved grassland.

In addition, we have been piloting three further grassland standards, and learnings from these have informed the standards that we launched in June 2022 and future standards. These will seek to support farmers to manage their soil to increase biodiversity and resilience to climate change, improve soil condition and carbon storage, and to improve water and air quality.