A vital knowledge gap about England’s environment has been uncovered by soil campaigners.
They have discovered that just 0.41 per cent of the cash invested in environmental monitoring goes on examining the soil.
That’s despite the fact that soils round the world – including in the UK – are said to be facing a crisis.
The figures are startling: £60.5 million goes to monitoring water quality, £7.65 million to checking on air – but just £284,000 to auditing soil.
The mismatch was revealed in a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the Sustainable Soils Alliance (SSA).