Since 1950, approximately 50% of all land on the global level has been converted from intact nature to agricultural land and infrastructure. Almost 90% of the world’s ecosystems are now considered degraded or severely degraded. Around one million species are threatened by extinction, and seven out of nine planetary boundaries have been pushed into the high-risk zone with agriculture as the primary driver behind five of them (land use change, freshwater change, modification of biogeochemical flows, climate change, and biosphere integrity).
The most recent analysis conducted by a research team from KAIST, in collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has shown that current emissions levels exceed the planet’s sustainable limit by more than double, with agriculture being the second largest sector emitting greenhouse gases (GHG) after the energy sector (around 25% of total emissions globally).
Aggregate analyses such as IPCC reports indicate that soils globally have lost a substantial percentage of their original carbon content. In Serbia, it is estimated that about 1 ton of soil per year is lost through erosion from the surface of 1 hectare, which is the layer that contains the most fertile soil. Some predictions state that we are left with between 50 and 60 harvests if the agricultural systems do not change. For centuries, we have treated soil as a physical substrate to be mechanically manipulated, neglecting the fact that soil is also a biological system. It contains animals, fungi, bacteria, and other organisms that perform countless critical functions (e.g., carbon storage, water filtration, and nutrient cycling).
Conventional agriculture, which uses mechanical tillage, disrupts this system, inhibiting its resilience to the effects of climate change.
When we speak of biodiversity loss, we typically think about, to us, interesting mammals like pandas or impressive big predators such as lions and tigers. However, more than half of the world’s species live in soil, with 25% of global biodiversity living in what we call the „living soil”.
These species form a complex web of biological activity essential to food production. For every species that we consider a pest, there are around 17.000 species that are beneficial or indifferent. Intensive agriculture destroys their habitat, and the soil, which is considered to be an unrenewable resource, becomes, in fact, sterilised.
Intensive agriculture has maximised yields for decades while practically destroying soil health. What we once called “soil fertility” was actually, in large part, the spending of a biological inheritance. To cite one of our farmers: “Today, we consider tractors and other heavy mechanisation as key resources, but the main resource is soil itself.” Without healthy soils, we cannot build agricultural systems that are sustainable and resilient to climate change.
Intensive agriculture has maximised yields for decades while practically destroying soil health.
Despite the grim situation, the latest paper published in Global Sustainability brings evidence that sustainable agricultural practices based on soil conservation can reverse destructive trends, and that the transition to sustainable agricultural practices has been already unravelling.
Between 2008/09 and 2018/19, agriculture, which focuses on soil conservation, nearly doubled from approximately 100 million hectares to 205 million hectares, and it is currently being implemented in about 15% of global cropland, potentially reaching 50% by 2050. The annual adoption rate accelerated from 5 million hectares per year in the 1990s and 2000s to approximately 10 million hectares annually since 2008.
Implementing methods of soil conservation has the potential to sequester around 0.5 to 0.9 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year, potentially about 0.4–0.8 gigatonnes of carbon annually at the global scale, while cutting fuel use by up to 70%. These practices create healthier soils that increase water retention, reduce erosion and provide greater resilience to droughts and floods. In the Serbian context, we do not currently have reliable data related to the scope of implementation of these practices, except for informal experience from farmers themselves and networking realised through the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance of Serbia, but there are increasing mutual efforts.
Encouraging statistic on the global scale shows that the increase since 2008/09 has been almost equally split between countries of the Global South (50.5%) and those of the Global North (49.5%). This implies that the meaningful transition does not require technological solutions reserved for the wealthiest countries. Also, the sustainable principles can be scaled down as effectively as they can be scaled up. While we can argue that climate change mitigation requires a global effort, improving soil health is something within our locus of control, as well as improving resilience to the effects of climate change. To achieve optimal results, the application must be synergistic, systemic and adapted to local conditions.
Arbitrary and partial adoption or adhering to a specific set of methods is not sufficient. This may be one of the reasons why the most successful adoptions around the world have been driven by farmer networks, peer-to-peer learning and recognition, and local experimentation.
Most of the world’s farms (more than 570 million) are small and family-run. Small farms (less than 2 ha) operate about 12% of the world’s agricultural land. Family farms operate about 75% of the agricultural land and produce 80% of the world’s food in value terms.
In Serbia, pioneering success in transition to sustainable agricultural systems, such as regenerative agriculture, has also been bottom-up and supported by farmer networking and peer-to-peer learning. This process and approach also reflect the very structure of our agriculture.
In Serbia, out of 508.325 farms, 506.323 are family farms. We have 3.947.257 ha as the area of available land for agriculture. 82,1% is used agricultural land, and 90% is used by family farms. Of the total number of farms, 2002 are owned by legal entities and entrepreneurs, while the remaining (99.6%) are family farms.
Although the farmer-led transition is evident, the ways in which we organise society, distribute resources, and conceptualise development are not in its favour.
Intensive agriculture did not emerge because farmers are stupid, reckless or evil. It emerged within a specific historical context, the process of industrialisation and commodification, and an economic system requiring infinite growth, creating dependency on purchased inputs, and integrating agriculture into global circuits of capital. An agricultural model which focuses on soil health, biodiversity and reduced external inputs threatens current models of production. The current socio-economic system incorporates farms almost the same as any other production units, evaluating them solely by output metrics while ignoring environmental costs, which is the material backbone of the agricultural system.
Designed to extract profit at every stage of the food value chain, short-term financial models externalise the risks and costs associated with soil degradation by simply leaving them out of the equation. The focus remains on increasing agricultural production even though there is no food shortage. Food insecurity is rooted in social phenomena such as poverty and inequality, not in a lack of production.
To conclude, putting agriculture on sustainable grounds has the potential to contribute to solutions related to a complex set of intertwined issues of climate, biodiversity, water, and soil, all at once. Agriculture that has a basis in conservation rebuilds soil, sequesters carbon, restores biodiversity, and enables production within Earth’s safe operating space.
Therefore, we must throw out short-term productivity as the primary goal in favour of soil health, and move from preaching and moralising to organising and facilitating the transition through concrete and material support for farmers.
Author: Siniša Borota, sociologist, Institute for Development and Innovation
