Soil, Vegetation, biofuels

Rising Population puts strain on Soil

By Joshua S. Hill

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

In a climate where everything is going to accelerate global climate-change, Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson has said in a statement "Soil and vegetation are being lost at an alarming rate around the globe, which in turn has devastating effects on food production and accelerates climate change."

Speaking in the lead up to a meeting of 150 scientists and government experts in his country from August 31 to September 4, Grimsson hopes to find a solution to safeguarding soil from over-use and desertification.

Over the past 100 years, the earth's population has risen from 1.7 billion in 1900 to currently sitting at 6.6 billion, with the population expected to continue to grow, reaching 9 billion in 2050. With such an increase in mouths to feed, the need for further land to grow food is going to test an already stretched landscape.

"With a rising world population and biofuels, more land is needed," said Andres Arnalds, Icelandic head of the meeting's organizing committee.

The setting for such a conference is typically ironically placed. Iceland is now classified as almost barren, but was once forests covered up to 40% of the countryside prior to the arrival of the Vikings. So the experts will be looking at ways to improve soil productivity, how to use water more efficiently, and safeguard those animals and plants that have an intrinsic link to the regeneration and continued upkeep of the soil.

"We should be irrigating only the most productive soils, and then sparingly," said Andrew Campbell, Australia's first National Landcare Facilitator. "It's not all doom and gloom. Many of the things we need to do are not radical," he added.