The letter reads as follows:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for highlighting the role livestock are playing in improving soil quality in your article on the 27 December [Estate puts hooves on the ground to save exhausted soil]. Both cattle and sheep can play an integral part in how farmers manage and improve soil quality, offering many benefits like improving carbon content.
Farmers recognise soil as one of their greatest assets and its health is vital to producing quality British food that helps to feed the nation.
It is therefore important that the repeated claims in this article that our soils are ‘exhausted’ do not go unchallenged. There’s a danger that often repeated claims can very easily become recognised as ‘fact’.
As well as their role providing food to the public, farmers are equally passionate about the environment they farm in and what they will be leaving behind for the next generations. The health of our soil is, and will continue to be, a critical part of that.
Guy Smith, NFU Vice President