Special soil observatories in China are helping to create more sustainable agriculture

All over the world, agriculture is threatened by degraded soils. Stripped of carbon from intensive farming, soils erode more easily, host fewer microbes and hold less water and nutrients. Fertilisers and pesticides applied to improve crop yields can leach beneath the soil and pollute the surrounding environment.

Soil degradation is a particularly big problem in China, where enormous pressure on natural resources from industrial-scale farming is accelerating the rate of soil erosion.