Changing Ground: Handling Tensions between Production Ethics and Environmental Ethics of Agricultural Soils

Abstract

Soils are an essential element in sustainable food systems and vital for ecosystem services. Soils are degrading, because of urbanization, poor soil management, depletion and mining, over-use of inputs and impacts of climate change. Poor soil management resulted from short-term yield maximization caused by changes in land tenure, property rights and land use. We argue for soil protection based on the concept of soil telos defined as the combined purposefulness in agricultural production and terrestrial ecosystem optimization. It includes the right of mankind to use soils, provided norms and values are respected based on the soil’s usefulness, its natural purposefulness and its right to be protected (including its physical, chemical and biological cycles). Finding a sustainable balance between these values and rights on the one hand and the need to use living soils for agricultural production on the other hand requires a new approach to soil management based on widely accepted norm- and value-driven decisions on unavoidable trade-offs. Reconciling man-made telos and natural telos, requires (i) empowering the soil to achieve its man-made telos (e.g., by restoring degraded soils); (ii) empowering the soil to achieve its natural telos (e.g., by restoring water courses); (iii) raising awareness about the need to reconcile these two teloi (e.g., by acknowledging rights of soils); and (iv) monitoring tools to assess successful reconciliation (e.g., by evaluating soil health).