Why soil health is the foundation of business resilience
Healthy soils are not just an environmental issue, they are a business imperative.
At Sancroft, our work with food and other agriculture-reliant businesses has made this abundantly clear. We’ve helped a global food company to assess the resilience of UK agriculture in a rapidly shifting political and environmental landscape. We’ve mapped climate- and nature-related risks in the supply chains of one of Britain’s leading food retailers. Throughout, we’ve seen firsthand how soil health is fundamental to the stability, quality and cost of essential agricultural products.
Many businesses outside of the food industry also rely on agriculture and healthy soils. The fashion industry depends on cultivated crops such as cotton. The pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries rely on agricultural by-products. Leaders in these sectors also need to develop strategies to ensure they maintain soil health within their supply chains. This is essential if they want to ensure stability of supply and business resilience.
This article explores the critical impact of this issue across industries and provides more detail on some of the projects we’ve worked on. It also offers practical guidance on how you can integrate consideration of soil health into your strategic decision-making. And also, engage with your supply chain to help you protect your business.
Why this issue matters
The scale of the challenge is already alarming and worsening fast. As long ago as 2010, the UK Environment Agency calculated that soil degradation costs £1.2 billion per year in England and Wales alone. In 2023, another Environment Agency report stated that almost 4 million hectares of soil are at risk of compaction. Over 2 million hectares of soil are at risk of erosion. Industrial agriculture practices such as overgrazing and intensive fertiliser use has caused arable soils to lose about 40 to 60% of their organic carbon. Certain regions, such as the East Anglian Fens, could see complete loss of fertility within 30–60 years. And this is not just a UK problem. Globally, the UN warns that a third of soils are moderately or highly degraded.
This matters, because we produce the vast majority of our food directly or indirectly on soils. When soil is degraded, its ability to support crops diminishes, yields fall, prices rise and the volatility spreads through entire industries.
Cotton, too, is highly vulnerable to pests and weeds, which means Its cultivation is heavily dependent on irrigation and pesticides that lead to soil degradation through salinisation and erosion. The impact of soil degradation is the same in the fashion industry as it is in food: it leads to decreased yields, increased prices. It also leads to greater deforestation when organisations acquire more land to cultivate crops.
Aside from these issues, healthy soils perform other services critical to resilience. They store more carbon, which helps to mitigate the impacts of climate change. They also reduce drought and flood risk by holding water and acting like a sponge. Degraded soils act in the opposite way. They amplify climate risks and compound challenges for businesses already grappling with increasingly unpredictable weather and high consumer price sensitivity.
The cost of inaction
The lesson is clear: failing to address soil health has consequences that go far beyond the farm. Once soils lose their topsoil, recovery can take decades, or even up to a century. This results in the permanent loss of agricultural productivity. Poor soils demand higher inputs of pesticides and fertilisers to maintain yields. This drives up costs for farmers and further degrades soils. As production falls, competition for scarce crops fuels broader price inflation. In extreme cases, desertification forces cultivation into new areas, which accelerates land use change and biodiversity loss.
On a global scale, the decline of soil health is also linked to migration pressures, heightened food insecurity and increased risk of conflict. In addition to the environmental and business impacts and risks, studies have shown that degraded soils lead to significant decreases in protein, vitamins, minerals, fibre and energy content in crops. This can have potentially devastating impacts on human health outcomes. Given that the world will need to produce 60% more food to feed a projected population of 9 billion by 2050, the risks are urgent and existential.
Solutions exist, but they require collaboration
The need to act to safeguard supply chains and production has become essential. In support of this goal, the science of soil restoration is advanced. Practices like crop rotation, cover cropping, reduced tillage, agroforestry and reducing synthetic inputs in favour of organic matter can reverse degradation. These regenerative approaches improve soil structure, increase water retention and restore biodiversity.
However, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Every farm has unique characteristics, which means that what works on one farm may not work on another. Geography, climate, crop type, farmer capacity and other factors all influence what will work. In addition, the adoption of regenerative practices requires investment and a fundamental change in methods of farming, which act as significant constraints for farmers.
For companies reliant on agricultural inputs, this means they must engage with farmers and supply chains directly, create opportunities for farmer-to-farmer learning, co-design solutions that fit the local context and support the transition both financially and technically.
How Sancroft can help
This is where we play our role at Sancroft. We don’t tell farmers how to manage their fields. However we do help businesses understand which parts of their supply chain are most vulnerable to soil degradation and what strategic actions will make the biggest difference to their resilience.
We help clients:
- Map material risks: Identify where soil degradation intersects with climate, policy, and economic pressures to threaten supply.
- Develop mitigation strategies: From supplier engagement programmes to long-term sourcing decisions that protect both yield and quality.
- Foster collaborative solutions: Help companies work with suppliers, NGOs and industry bodies to encourage practices that rebuild soil health.
- Integrate resilience into decision-making: Ensure that soil health considerations aren’t an afterthought but a strategic factor in business planning, procurement, investment and innovation.
This work has often uncovered the pivotal role of soil health in supply chain resilience. For Marks & Spencer, for example, we have mapped the future sourcing impacts posed by climate change and nature degradation across their supply chain. Our process identified which crops, in which regions, were most at risk. Soil degradation was a key factor in the analysis. Our deep dive helped M&S anticipate where soil decline could threaten supply stability and increase costs. We highlighted practical actions such as supporting supplier adaptation, diversifying sourcing strategies and fostering more regenerative farming practices to mitigate those risks. This gave M&S not only visibility on potential disruptions, but also the confidence to make strategic decisions to protect resilience.
This and other engagements confirm that soil health is not just a farmer’s concern: it’s a material business risk that decision makers cannot afford to ignore.
Acting now is both sustainable and strategic
The future of business resilience is rooted in the health of our soil, both in the UK and globally. Businesses that move early to understand their risk exposure and act to build resilience will be those best placed to secure their supply chains. They will also help safeguard ecosystems for the future, while food companies will contribute towards the maintenance of food security.
To act now is not only the sustainable choice. It’s the strategic choice that protects the planet, strengthens your resilience and supports your long-term profitability.
If you’d like to explore how to protect your supply chain from these risks, please contact me at Austen.Crean@sancroft.com.