Soil monitoring: deal with Council on new EU law with better support for farmers

On Wednesday evening, Parliament and Council negotiators reached a provisional political agreement on the Commission’s proposal for a soil monitoring law. The overall objective is to have healthy European soils by 2050, in line with the EU’s “zero pollution” ambition. It should also provide for a more coherent and harmonised EU framework for soil monitoring. Monitoring and assessing EU soils According to the deal, member states will have to monitor and assess soil health across their territories using common soil descriptors – characterising the physical, chemical, and biological aspect of soil health for each soil type – and an EU methodology for sampling points. To make it simpler for member states, they will be free to build on national soil monitoring campaigns or other equivalent methodologies. The Commission will support member states by reinforcing its current EU soil sampling programme, LUCAS Soils. It will offer tailor-made financial and technical support. To reflect different levels of soil degradation and local conditions, national governments will set non-binding, sustainable, targets for each soil descriptor, in line with the overall objective of improving soil health. No new obligations for farmers To protect farmers and foresters, the agreed directive does not impose any new obligations on landowners or land managers. Instead, it obliges EU countries to help them improve soil health and soil resilience – the soil’s capacity to keep playing its important...