Europe advances towards more nutritious soil across the continent

The European Union has taken a significant step towards protecting the health and resilience of its soils with the adoption of a new directive. The Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience, proposed by the Commission, aims to mitigate the impacts of land take on soil's capacity to provide ecosystem services, without hindering the permitting of such activities.

The directive requires Member States to identify potentially contaminated sites and manage risks to human health and the environment, adhering to the 'polluter pays' principle. It will also introduce a framework for monitoring soil health across the EU, based on national soil monitoring systems.

The directive is a response to concerns over soil degradation and contamination, which pose risks to food security, safety, biodiversity, climate resilience, and extreme weather events. Soil degradation and contamination are estimated to cost the EU over €50 billion per year, with an annual agricultural productivity loss of €1,25 billion due to erosion alone.

The law will help enhance the resilience of soils to natural disasters, heatwaves, extreme weather events, erosion, contamination, and biodiversity loss. It will provide a comprehensive, harmonized, and flexible soil health monitoring framework with criteria for healthy soil.

However, the directive does not impose obligations on monitoring or improving soil health and resilience on landowners and land managers, including farmers. Instead, it encourages Member States to provide support to soil managers to improve soil health and resilience.

Once adopted and published in the Official Journal of the EU, the directive will enter into force 20 days later, after which Member States will have 3 years to put in place national frameworks for its operation. The agreement includes establishing a dedicated website on soil and land by the Commission for further information.

While the search results do not provide specific information about which EU member states receive Commission support for implementing the Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive regarding soil sampling, testing, and archiving, it is clear that the directive is a significant step towards promoting healthy soils for the benefit of citizens, farmers, land managers, and the environment.