Healthy soils are essential for life, providing the foundation for 95% of the food we eat. They filter and store water, help plants grow and are critical to the long-term resilience and stability of farmer’s livelihoods, especially in the face of increasing extreme weather events. Currently, over 60% of soils are undergoing degradation processes. One of the major causes of this is the lack of a dedicated EU legislative framework, as the failure to protect soils from the pressures of intensive agriculture, urban expansion, climate change and pollution have led to compaction, erosion and loss of biodiversity and organic matter. Soil degradation costs Europe at least 97 billion euros per year, with the costs of inaction outweighing the cost of action by a factor of six.
In July 2023, the European Commission proposed a Soil Monitoring Law (Directive for Soil Monitoring and Resilience, SML), but its proposal falls short in key areas. Over the past year, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council adopted their respective positions on the SML. As the institutions now enter trilogue negotiations, we, a coalition of 9 NGOs, urge them to agree on the strongest version of the law, drawing on the most ambitious elements of the agreed mandates.