The world’s population is growing and with it the need for more food. Intensive agriculture and conversion of forests into farmland are seriously endangering soil fertility worldwide. Soil fertility is an important precondition for sustainable food production. Find out how Triodos approaches this issue when assessing companies for potential investment.

Fertile soil is necessary for growing crops as it is rich of particles, minerals and organic compounds. Fertile soil is mostly found near rivers and in coastal areas. These areas are also densely populated. Currently, 44% of the global population is concentrated in a strip less than 150km from the coast, and this percentage is rising.

Sustainable soil at risk

The combination of human settlement and intensive agriculture has put the fertile areas under enormous pressure, however. Soil degradation forces us to continuously look for and exploit new areas. In the short term, the use of ‘modern’ agricultural techniques, such as monocultures, deep plowing, pesticides, chemical fertilizers and genetically modified crops have resulted in higher yields, but in the long term they lead to exhaustion of the soil and thus to decreasing harvests.

The acreage of farmland has diminished due to ongoing urbanisation, especially in those areas that are most suitable for food production. As a consequence, new ‘virgin’ areas need to be exploited, particularly forests and savannas in the southern hemisphere. It takes nature a thousand years to generate a layer of rich soil of just one centimetre thick. Intensive farming can destroy it in less than a decade. Even worse, once the soil has been destroyed, it is more vulnerable to further degradation through wind and rain erosion. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, ‘Our soils are in danger because of expanding cities, deforestation, unsustainable land use and management practices, pollution, overgrazing and climate change. The current rate of degradation threatens the capacity to meet the needs of future generations’.

Holistic approach to assessing soil care

When assessing companies for inclusion in our sustainable investment universe, we consider diverse issues related to soil care. We promote less intensive food production, in combination with systematic soil preservation. In organic farming, soil management is key, and practices such as crop rotation and green manure are employed. We limit our selection to companies involved in (preferably) organic or other less intensive forms of farming. Examples of companies focusing on organic, natural and healthy food are Hain Celestial, Sunopta and Wessanen.

Palm oil and soy are two major crops predominantly grown in regions that were previously savannas and tropical forests, so policies and programmes related to deforestation and biodiversity are also heavily scrutinized. Through dialogue, we promote effective policies and actions for the sustainable management and protection of soil resources. We also encourage relevant companies to implement sustainable soil management activities and develop and maintain healthy soils.

It is not easy to find multinational food producers that meet all our requirements for healthy soil and healthy food, but we continue to push the agenda, challenge them, and hope to see progress in this regard in the future.

Note: The issues explored in this article are relevant for sustainable investments on the stock market. Triodos Bank believes that our socially responsible investments are a powerful means of promoting our values and working for greater sustainability, while enabling us to offer a complete range of attractive investment options to customers who choose to invest on the stock market.