Sustainable agriculture

We all depend on soil for so many things, food production, carbon storage, water filtration and recreation to name but four. But unfortunately soil is a fragile resource and can easily be damaged, particularly by modern intensive farming methods.

In addition to my earthworm ecology work which is often directly related to sustainable agriculture I also carry out work that is not directly related to earthworms.

Professor Paul Hallett, University of Aberdeen has led two large NERC - NSF(China) funded projects linked to sustainable agriculture in China. RedSoil (NERC, NSFC, Newton Fund NE/N007611/1, NE/N007484/1) Red Soil CZ: From natural to anthropogenic evolution of Red Soil and its impa

ct on ecosystem function in the Critical Zone) involved many colleagues both from Aberdeen and China and developed decision support tools to aid farming on red soils.The project was part of a larger NERC-NSFC critical zone programme which led on to a further project MIDST-CZ: Maximising Impact by Decision Support Tools for sustainable soil and water through UK-China Critical Zone science (NERC NE/S009167/1) which aimed to further develop DSTs using data gathered by the various projects that formed the programme.

Working with Professors Deborah O'Connell of the York plasma institute, James Chong in our Biology department, Dr Miranda Prendergast-Miller and others we were able to demonstrate that plasma could be used to generate nitrate in situ in soils and increase plant growth. This raises the possibility of decarbonising the fertiliser production industry.