MANY olive groves, vineyards and orange orchards around the Mediterranean
face ruin. Soil erosion could halve their output within the next 50 years, warns
Diego de la Rosa of the Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology in
Seville, Spain.
“In parts of the Mediterranean region, soil erosion has reached a state of
irreversibility,” he says in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment
(vol 81, p 179). For example, a typical one-hectare field in Andalusia in
southern Spain is losing 50 tonnes of soil a year—fifty times faster than
it is created from the bedrock beneath.
Last month, the UN Convention…
