Ukrainian lands are becoming less productive, and nutritional value of products is lower than 50 years ago
It is one of the main reasons why we desperately need to turn agricultural lands into natural reserves.
During a recent Rubryka's interview with the director of the Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park, Iryna Vykhrystiuk, the scientist told about the fact that the fertility of Ukrainian soils on agricultural lands is decreasing every year:
"If you compare the productive value of the land now and 50 years ago, the difference is enormous," says Iryna Vykhrystiuk. "If you ate, for example, a piece of bread 50 years ago and now, you would feel the difference because the nutritional value of food products 50 years ago was much higher. To feel full, you have to eat 3-4 times more food now."
According to the chief naturalist, the use of chemicals during the cultivation of fruits and vegetables leads to this:
"Bread, tomatoes, cucumbers — everything grown nowadays has less nutritional value. It is because we use a large number of chemicals, making it possible to grow more volumes of products. The big volume is fast money. That's why we lose in quality," says the expert and emphasizes that everything in nature is connected, and even products of a different origin have less nutritional value. It also applies to milk and meat.
Although, there are some good news. Reducing the area of arable land has long been a goal of scientists involved in agriculture. It is about reducing the arable land to 37-41%. The same is required by one of the EU directives, according to which we must turn 30% of agricultural land into nature reserves. A similar experiment has already been conducted by Tuzly NNP biologists, and they have already obtained the first successful results.
About how it will affect the restoration of the fertility of agricultural land and how much time we will need for this — read in Rubryka's material dedicated to the Ukrainian steppes.
