Letter: Food for thought

Just as alarming as the basic argument that the world will run out of arable soil in 60 years (Farming, October 16) is the positive comment by the president of the British Society of Soil Science about Scotland's soil protection policy.

We may well be protecting from erosion and poor management what soil we do have, but that is diminishing daily at an alarming rate, due mainly to the explosion of housing and associated road-building. This land is permanently lost to food production.

This housing "demand" is completely artificial in many ways; lack of control of banking led to irresponsible lending which, in turn, produced larger houses; all of this was exacerbated by the "need" for housing for the homeless, immigrants and by "social" housing being offered to 16-year-olds, with priority to unmarried young mothers who in earlier times would have been looked after at home.

This year's failure of the Russian grain harvest alone should be a warning that we can't rely on imported food, especially with world demand rising.

ROBERT DOW

Ormiston Road

Tranent, East Lothian