Last month, I presented at the National Soils Conference in Canberra, and asked 400 colleagues a simple question: do you think soil will play as significant a role in food production in 100 years as it does today?
A sea of hands went up: the consensus was clearly yes . I demurred, saying I'm not so sure.
Gasps rippled across the room. Why say that? You're a soil scientist! Are you crazy?
A century is a long time. Most of our scientific horizons seem no more than a decade or two away. But how we manage food and our environments needs very long-term, inspired thinking.
Within my concern about whether the future of food production is on terra firma, there is also a hope.
That hope rests in the desire that there will be adequate, quality food for all of the 10 billion, 15 billion or 20 billion people in the future. To achieve that, perhaps we don't need to rely on the our planet's thin skin of soil after all.
Future farming We already see the advance of vertical and hydroponic farming, and the potential for growing meat-like protein in the lab. Synthetic biology is one way forward.
We have seen the advances of hydroponic farming. www.shutterstock.com, CC BY Also read: SAB brings agriculture to the city with rooftop farming
So will we have the technological know-how, and will we be able to afford the infrastructural investment to produce all our food away from natural soil within a century?
Technologically we would like to think this is possible. But will we have the need? Do we have the will?
There are two predominant modern movements in relation to food. The first is the ethical and environmental movement, which holds that food should be produced without harm to the environment or perhaps even to animals. Soil is an important - and non-renewable - part of the environment. This raises the crucial question of whether it can continue to sustain the world's growing population.
Alongside this is the slow food movement, with its concern for the production of high-quality food of known provenance. It's sometimes called paddock to plate or field to fork .
Already, modern food production techniques to manage energy and water use can potentially give 10 times the yield per unit area that normal field conditions provide. This could be transferred to vertical growing spaces, 100 units high.
That alone means we would need just 0.1% of the land area we use now for food production. This could free up huge tracts of land to allow soil to recover from degradation, restoring ecosystems across the planet. It would represent a high-tech answer to the question of environmental ethics.
Returning areas of soil currently used for food production back to native vegetation could help us conserve wildlife, defend against floods, and provide natural buffer areas that can filter water and cycle nutrients. Locations may include soils in rainforests with copious biodiversity and voluminous water-cycling capability, or wetlands upstream of cities prone to flooding.
In Australia, the decline of carbon in cropping lands, soil erosion and nutrient imbalances continue largely unchecked and unabated. www.shutterstock.com, CC BY This approach is not necessarily incompatible with the slow food movement. Indeed, it could actually help the movement achieve its goals, because it would take the pressure off the world's soils, thus ensuring there is enough high-quality soil left to pursue high-quality ethical production.
More food for more people The United Nations Food & Agricultural Organisation predicts a need to double agricultural production by 2050 to meet the demand of an estimated population of 9.5 billion. This must be done while simultaneously maintaining functioning ecosystems; therefore securing soils and their life-supporting functions have never been more crucial.
In Australia, while soil care has improved, it is not yet sustainable. Widespread soil acidification and the decline of carbon in cropping lands, soil erosion and nutrient imbalances continue largely unchecked and unabated. With the new approach the appropriate soil and terroir could be dedicated to high-quality sustainable bespoke food and wine production.
The great loessial soils of North America, Russia and Ukraine are often regarded as the best in the world - they could be managed sustainably for the production of cereals for centuries to come. Even some of these most food-productive soils could be returned to their former pre-agricultural state. In Australia our famous red-brown earths might be more useful for forestry than being pressed into service for cereal production.
That said, the infrastructural costs of producing food entirely without soil will be enormous. It's more likely we will land on a blended solution that combines highly engineered growing spaces and under the sky soil-based agriculture.
Over the coming century, our challenge will be to move away from our almost total reliance on soil - that mutable and vital thin skin of the earth - to allow large tracts of our most vulnerable soils to repair. Healing our wounded soils will be an important step on the road to global sustainability.
Originally published by Alex McBratney on The Conversation. Also read: The next green revolution: A new dawn in agriculture technology
Tags: South Africasustainability
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
02/12/2025
Case Study: How Mid-Atlantic Sports Network Moved to All-IP Distribution in 60 D...
02/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Lee Corso, Coach, Commentator, FirebrandBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | S...
02/12/2025
SVG All-Stars: Dan Nabors, Senior Director, Remote Engineering, TNT SportsThe veteran tech leader is helping guide Warner Bros. Discovery's at-home' re...
02/12/2025
National Lacrosse League Opens Season With New Cloud-Based Official Replay-Revie...
02/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: The Cinematic Look in Live Production - Bridging Aesthetic...
02/12/2025
SVG India Announces Advisory Board; JioStar's Prashant Khanna Named ChairmanBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story |...
02/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: New AI Production Tools Workshop' Features ESPN, F...
02/12/2025
Written and directed by Hailey Gates, Atropia won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival....
02/12/2025
The lightweight and highly portable CORVUS-RAVEN, recently demonstrated at the V...
02/12/2025
The lightweight, rugged Panther 2 tri-band VSAT delivers high-speed data communications for Internet, VPN connectivity and video transmission over commercial an...
02/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
02/12/2025
NGID volunteers in the United States
NGID volunteers in Mexico
NGID volunteers in India
NGID volunteers in Spain
NGID volunteers in Australia
NGID voluntee...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony Electronics today introduced the Alpha 7 V (ILCE-7M5), the fifth generation of its Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless lineup, powered by the newly dev...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on Nexstar Media Group's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna and se...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters has added a trio of media executives, Veronica Rodriguez, Matt Schnaars and Jeff Warshaw, to its board of di...
02/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
02/12/2025
BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced a new Service Provider Partner agreement with NPC Media, the Australian managed p...
02/12/2025
DPA Microphones today announces the immediate availability of its new N-Series Digital Wireless Microphone System for customers throughout the U.S. In addition ...
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day on so...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
02/12/2025
Ring In The Holidays With Our Biggest Sale Ever On Ivory II Pianos!From now until December 31st, you can save 50% or more on every Ivory II piano and collection...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Made in America: How Stranger Things' Electrified the US Economy
Entertainment
02 December 2025
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to cl...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Trailer Teases New Rules, R...
02/12/2025
--
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Unio...
02/12/2025
Harmonic's cOS Platform Will Redefine Subscribers' Quality of Experience, Lowering Churn SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 2, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today...
02/12/2025
At AWS re:Invent, NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic collab...
02/12/2025
S an Nollaig
Hollywood blockbusters The Banshees of Inisherin, Barbie and Oppenheimer make their Irish TV debut
Tune into the classics such as Love Actual...
02/12/2025
Showcasing fresh Irish storytelling and emerging talent Storyland 2025 signals a fantastic time for Irish drama
RT and F s ireann/Screen Ireland are proud to...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
Last month, I presented at the National Soils Conference in Canberra, and asked 400 colleagues a simple question: do you think soil will play as significant a role in food production in 100 years as it does today?
