Soil quality - Infopage
Mapping of soil conditions and CAP contribution to soil quality preservation.
Background information
Soil is essential for life and represents the key element to grow crops that feed people and animals. Agricultural practices influence soil viability, while agriculture is heavily dependent on soil quality. The dashboard includes a graph on quantity of soil organic matter, which is a key component to keep soil fertility and to accumulate carbon. It also includes a map on the risk of soil erosion, which can be a major source of degradation.
Crop diversity is important to keep the soil viable: the related graphs show agricultural statistics on the number of crops across Member States. The other graphs are related to CAP interventions directed to soil quality: the share of agricultural land under rural development contracts includes actions to improve soil management and to prevent soil erosion. The greening obligation on crop diversification (expressed both in number of beneficiaries and areas) aims to keep an overall minimum diversity on arable land.
To know more on environmental challenges facing agriculture and rural areas, click here.
In case data are missing for some Member States, EU totals are calculated with the available information.
Graph: Soil organic matter in arable land Unit: Mega t & g/kg
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Mapping with legend(s) in the graph:
Map: Share of UAA in severe risk of soil erosion by water (%)
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Notes:
- UAA: Utilised agricultural area
- Data are displayed here at Member State level. A MAP at Nuts3 level is available here.
Graph: Share of land under contracts to improve soil
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Notes:
- The agricultural land under management contracts to improve soil management (focus area 4C) is reported by Member States to the Commission in the Annual implementation reports (AIR) of Rural Development programmes. The denominator (total Utilised agricultural area) refers to the figure of the closest year in the Farm Structure Survey (Eurostat).
- It should be noted that a number of management contracts have multiple effects, which means that the same area may count toward other focus areas and priorities, for example in relation to biodiversity and water management.
Graph: Crop diversity on EU farms - Share of farms classified by number of arable crops (%)
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Mapping with legend(s) in the graph:
Notes:
- Based on the Farm Structure Survey (Eurostat).
Graph: Farms with 1 arable crop by size class (%)
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Mapping with legend(s) in the graph:
Notes:
- Based on the Farm Structure Survey (Eurostat).
Graph: Share of CAP beneficiaries subject to crop diversification due to greening
by size class of arable land
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Mapping with legend(s) in the graph:
Notes:
- CATS is the Clearance of Accounts Audit Trail System, i.e. the database used for audit, based on information received from Member States.
- ISAMM is one of the data systems used by Member States to send their notifications to the European Commission. It is used to extract output indicators (uptake data) on greening.
- Crop diversification is one of the greening requirements introduced in the 2013 CAP reform. This requirement applies to farmers with over 10 ha of arable land. More info here.
Graph: Farms with 3 arable crops or more by size class (%)
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Mapping with legend(s) in the graph:
Notes:
- Based on the Farm Structure Survey (Eurostat).
Graph: Share of land subject to crop diversification due to greening (arable land) (%)
Indicator(s) used in the graph:
Mapping with legend(s) in the graph:
Notes:
- ISAMM is one of the data systems used by Member States to send their notifications to the European Commission. It is used to extract output indicators (uptake data) on greening.
- The source for the arable land area and the Utilised agricultural area (UAA) is the crop production statistics (Eurostat).
- Changes in AT between 2015 and 2016 are due to the withdrawal of an equivalent practice to crop diversification, applied in 2015 and not anymore in 2016, implying an increase of the area subject to standard crop diversification.