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Both the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F) indirectly address threats to soil biodiversity. Both strategies aim to reduce:
- Fertilisers by 20%.
- Nutrient losses by at least 50%.
- Overall use and risk of chemical pesticide use by 50% and hazardous pesticides by a further 50%.
- And increase organic farms to 25% by 2030.
This would avoid soil contamination and, on the other hand, enhance the use of organic fertilisers and thus protect the soil, as we have seen in a previous entry.
The F2F strategy proposes a revision of the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive to significantly reduce the use, risk and dependence on pesticides and to enhance integrated pest management. The Biodiversity Strategy explicitly addresses land degradation and soil restoration: protected areas +30% and planting more than 3 billion trees by 2030. In addition, increased application of agro-ecological practices and reduced deforestation to mitigate climate change is encouraged. This, in turn, will benefit soil biodiversity.
One of the key measures announced by the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 are regulatory targets for nature restoration. The EC proposed targets during 2022, including several soil protection measures that indirectly protect soil biodiversity. The F2F Strategy also announced a proposal for a legislative framework for a sustainable EU food system, due in 2023.
Although the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 included the objective of protecting soil ecosystems, there is still no uniform definition of soil biodiversity protection at EU level.
Furthermore, the Biodiversity Strategy 2030 does not yet address the risks associated with soil compaction and conventional tillage. The F2F Strategy does not explicitly consider soil compaction, tillage, soil organic matter loss, soil erosion, soil sealing and habitat fragmentation, but it does call for a more sustainable EU food system.
On the other hand, some of the proposed actions could have conflicting effects. For example, for more sustainable manure management, both the F2F Strategy and the Circular Economy Plan see anaerobic digestion as a solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but this does not integrate the negative effects of carbon availability and heavy metal/antibiotic content on soil biodiversity.
You can find more information in this article, “In defence of biodiversity: towards an inclusive protection in the Europe Union“.
