Depleted soil leads to reduced yields, forcing farmers to rely on fertilizers that raise food production costs, consumer prices.

Summary

Grocery prices are expected to rise globally as soil degradation, driven by overfarming, deforestation, and climate change, reduces farmland productivity.

The UN estimates 33% of the world’s soils are degraded, with 90% at risk by 2050. Poor soil forces farmers to use costly fertilizers or abandon fields, raising prices for staples like bread, vegetables, and meat.

Experts advocate for sustainable practices like regenerative agriculture, cover cropping, and reduced tillage to restore soil health.

Innovations and government subsidies could mitigate impacts, but immediate action is critical to ensure food security.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    19 hours ago

    Not many people have mentioned this so I guess I’ll bring it up:

    The two major factors negatively impacting sustainability of agriculture are

    • Ammonia (NH3) is mined as a way to enrich agriculture with Protein, more specifically the ammonia bonds with nitrogen allowing plant development, but it’s not exactly infinite. Synthetic Ammonia can be produced but is extremely emission heavy as it is often a petrochemical byproduct with the vast majority of Hydrogen (H) is produced from fossil fuels refining.

    • Modern Invasive Pests/Disease are commonly spread across continents. Lack of plant biodiversity leads to viral outbreaks called “blights” which can lower or even wipe out entire regions of crops. Invasive species most notably insects can plague regions for years without any natural predators. Globalization and Industrialization have created these hurdles, but the yield of such practices are absolutely necessary to feed the current human population.

    There are no solutions except reducing the human population. Which isn’t going to happen, because people are stupid animals and the people we’ve empowered all over the world are morons who cannot read the writing on the wall.

    • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      93·
      17 hours ago

      This isn’t even true. The carrying capacity of earth for people hasn’t been met. We can absolutely engineer things to be both sustainable and livable at current populations. Rhetoric that advises we “depopulate” is borderline neo-fascism, the same stuff Christians say to bring on the apocalypse.

      James Cassidy at Oregon State University has his SOIL lecture series on YouTube. We have many ways to repair our soil and to improve farming. Killing people/ “depopulating” isn’t one of them. Shame on you.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        44·
        17 hours ago

        I’m saying we need to have less kids and you’re saying that belief is christofascism, lmao

        Despite many noteworthy christofascists supporting population growth such as Elon Musk.

        Have fun engineering an entirely new way to supply food for over 7 Billion people that nobody has ever tried before. I look forward to your results. It’s a good thing you were taught by the world’s greatest minds over on fucking YouTube.

        • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
          52·
          16 hours ago

          Read again, he’s a soil scientist and professor at OSU that made his lecture available for free on YouTube.

          You didn’t say “less kids,” you said smaller population.

          And I can see how much of an appetite you have for learning things that aren’t “kill kill death death,” so yeah. Won’t waste more of my time explaining. You can’t even be bothered to understand that professors can post lectures online.

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            21·
            16 hours ago

            And you, after watching a couple of lessons on YouTube, are here lecturing me despite knowing absolutely nothing of my qualifications. I retract nothing.

            “kill kill death death,”

            You’re the first person to mention killing or death in this entire thread.