Our Champions

The Ancient Greeks understood that gardens were places of learning. Plato taught in the gardens of Academus. All civilisation comes from "culture", derived from horticulture.

Civilisation is fragile. Today we face a terrible possibility, that much of the world's soil has within it no more than a hundred harvests. We have arrived here in under a century of intensive soil utility. We live now at a time when the health of our soil is possibly the single biggest challenge for humanity. We need to address it with the knowledge of science and the language of affection, for it is the soil that gives rise to the notion of Mother Earth, the nurturing soil.

Healthy soils teem with life and possibility. As well as providing our food soils recycle, they soak up floods and carbon, and protect us against droughts. They’re a fragile foundation for life on earth. Let’s look after them!

There is much still to learn but we could tackle the crisis facing our soils by getting the basics right and building up the organic matter in soil – the Soil Association’s target is to increase it by 20% in 20 years. The Sustainable Soils Alliance is a movement that unites those, like us, committed to taking urgent, lasting action.

Everything we eat flows from the soil. Healthy soil provides nourishment and nutrients, goodness and taste. But when we lose sight of its precious living quality, we are in danger of losing a vital thread in the web of life. When it is over-exploited, the very system we depend on is destroyed. We are impoverished and left vulnerable.

Soils are facing a crisis as we have allowed them to degrade and wash away the world over. We need to act fast before we reach an irrecoverable tipping point in the soil’s capacity to regenerate and continue to provide not only good food, but food at all. We must hand over to the next generation soils that are secured, nurtured and cared for. This is why I fully support the aims and philosophy of the Sustainable Soils Alliance. I believe it can help people and organisations reach beyond their traditional boundaries, so that the UK can grasp this unique opportunity and become the world leader in soil health recovery and sustainability standards.

The urgent need to evaluate the world wide problem of soil erosion is being tackled by a consortium of concerned organisations, starting here in the UK. Yeo Valley are hugely supportive of this movement. For the sake of future generations, it is our duty to do so.

Brexit means that for the first time for a generation the UK will have its own independent agricultural policy. The choices that we make now will affect generations to come and so supporting the Sustainable Soils Alliance to help unify and amplify all the voices that have soils' best interest at heart is a simple instinctive “yes” from us.