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Soils are fundamental to society, providing vital services including food, fuel, flood mitigation, water purification, regulation of nutrient cycling and stability of the climate. Despite this, conventional agricultural practices have led to widespread soil degradation, resulting in erosion, and loss of soil structure, organic matter, and biodiversity. This degradation has profound implications for global food security and ecosystem service provision. One of the greatest challenges now facing humanity is to improve the sustainability of agriculture and reduce its environmental impact, whilst also meeting the food demands of the growing global population, which now exceeds 7 billion.

Dr Jill Edmondson is a soil scientist and ecologist at the University of Sheffield. She will discuss the impact of agriculture on soils at a range of scales, from allotment own-grown fruit and vegetable production up to large scale conventional agriculture.

Jill will also discuss her citizen science project Measure Your Harvest (MYHarvest), which will collect data from own-growers across the UK on fruit and vegetable crop yields. The project will be launched in early 2017.