Ukraine with highest desertification rate and second most arable land in Europe

Right now, we are losing the most valuable resource—the soil fertility

The leading "resource" in Ukraine in economic terms is soil. It was once famous for their fertility, and people actively used this opportunity to satisfy their needs; now, more than half of Ukraine's territories are arable land, and we are losing this resource:

"We are the most plowed state in Europe, the second most plowed state in the world, and accordingly in terms of soil loss as well, that is, we are also the leader in Europe in terms of desertification," an ecologist, an employee of Zoology Institute of Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences and the head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group public organization, Oleksii Vasyliuk, told Rubryka during an interview.

As the scientist explained, the term "desertification" means the loss of the fertile soil layer. In previous articles, we have already discussed that a generous layer of soil cannot be formed on arable land. The most fertile soils—chernozems—are formed under perennial natural vegetation. When a person destroys steppe vegetation to create arable land, fertility is not restored.

"It means a loss of a resource, a resource that contains a third of the planet's carbon," the ecologist comments.

Unfortunately, this process has already happened in some territories. One of the examples is the Oleshky sands:

"The Oleshky sands are important to us, not because it is the largest desert in Europe, and not because it is artificial, but because by showing the Oleshky sands, we can say that there is a real problem. If we lose soil on such a scale, we will not reproduce it elsewhere in Ukraine. The Oleshky sands have not been overgrown with vegetation for 100 years," Vasyliuk gave an example.