• Manure from animal agriculture
• Water pollution from animal ag
• Factory farming in HICs causes environmental disasters in LMICs
• Some stuff on carbon sequenstration in soil here Grass fed beef is not better for the environment

Currently, the degradation of land and soils is affecting at least 3.2 billion people – 40 per cent of the world’s population.

One review (Centeri, 2022) found that while grazing can have positive or negative effects based on a number of factors, overall research indicated that grazing is negative. Mainly due to overuse, grazing on sloping pasture lands can cause severe soil damage, the trampling can cause compaction, compaction decreases infiltration and thus increase runoff and, consequently, soil loss.

A 2006 report found that livestock is responsible for an estimated 55% of erosion and sediment in the US

Fertiliser

• Production of the high grade rock form of phosphorous is concentrated in just a handful of countries, and it is estimated that three quarters of the remaining reserve is in Morocco.
• Nitrogen will never be scarce thanks to the Haber Bosch process, which enables us to make nitrogen out of thin air, but at considerable energy cost: it consumes around three to five per cent of the world’s annual natural gas output.

#High_Income_Countries/UK

Soils in every region in England are oversaturated with nitrogen and all but one has a surplus of phosphorus.

Why is soil important?

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Soil, particularly the 30 cm layer which is called the topsoil, provides many ecosystem services such as the production of food, filtering of water and recycling of organic waste streams. Cultivation, degradation, pollution and changes in land-use impact the ability of soils to deliver these ecosystem services (FAO, 2011).

Rational/Materiality Despite being a naturally occurring process, soil erosion can accelerate greatly through agricultural activities, including removal of vegetation cover, tillage, soil compaction, and overgrazing by livestock, particularly when these practices are conducted on steep slopes in areas subjected to intense rainstorms or wind events. In agriculture, original vegetation cover is removed to make land available for crop production or animal grazing. Agricultural crops rarely hold onto the topsoil as well as the original vegetation cover, increasing soil erosion and potentially reducing soil fertility over time. Estimates show that half of the topsoil globally has been lost in the last 150 years (FAO, 2011).