Allotments could be key to sustainable farming, study finds

Soils under Britain's allotments are significantly healthier than intensively farmed soils First study to show that growing at small-scale in urban areas produces food sustainably without damaging soils Authors say planning and policy makers should promote urban own-growing as a sustainable way of meeting increasing food demand - An increase in urban allotments could help us meet the rising demand for food throughout the world, without damaging the Earth's soils, according to new research from the University of Sheffield. One of the greatest challenges facing the growing human population is meeting rising demand for food without undermining the soils on which food production - and other services such as carbon storage, flood mitigation and locking up pollutants - depends. In the first study of its kind, Dr Jill Edmondson from the University's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, has found that soils under Britain's allotments are significantly healthier than soils that have been intensively farmed. Conducted in Leicester, ecologist Dr Edmondson took soil samples from 27 plots on 15 allotment sites from across the city. She also sampled soils from local parks, gardens and surrounding agricultural land. The samples were used to measure a range of soil properties, including soil organic carbon levels, total nitrogen, and the ratio between carbon and nitrogen (which are all directly related to the amount and quality of organic matter in the soil) as well as soil bulk density, an indicator of soil compaction.