Soil

The natural environment plays a critical role in sustaining life and supporting the production of our food system. Our natural resource stewardship strategy prioritises driving a positive impact across water, biodiversity and soil. The natural environment is complex and interconnected and making progress in these areas helps us also deliver our broader carbon and climate change programme.   

The Earth’s soils are an ecosystem of their own. If healthy, they can act as an invaluable tool to tackle the climate crisis, absorbing carbon, managing water levels, promoting biodiversity, and supporting agricultural productivity.  Poorly managed land can lead to the breakdown of soil structure, which means they can no longer produce the same benefits for planet and people.  

Soil is an important pillar of our Natural Resource Stewardship Strategy. The majority of our risk and impact on soils is in our agricultural supply base, so our priority is establishing soil health management to drive progress. 

CJ Fountain & Son, based near Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire have been supplying high quality potatoes since 1968 to Asda’s International Procurement Limited (IPL) site.  The farm is now third generation owned with James Fountain taking the reins from his father David. 

In recent years Asda and IPL with Syngenta have encouraged farmers to keep soil covered and improve biodiversity and soil structure through the use of our bespoke seed mixture offer (Operation Pollinator).  The seeds create a wildlife habitat during the late Spring and Summer and the wildlife corridors can also be used as buffer strips to watercourses. 

For the 2022 potato crop, James had an area of the farm earmarked for potato cropping that had previously been unproductive and prone to flooding. After sharing cropping plans and enquiring about seed mixtures to fill 7 acres1 of land, James opted to sow a ‘bees n seeds’ mixture (containing mustard, buckwheat, kale rape, gold of pleasure, phacelia and fodder radish) to cover soil, improve the soil structure and the farm biodiversity. This has provided valuable late season pollen and nectar for insects, before providing an essential food source for many farmland birds. 

Despite the prolonged heat during the Summer of 2022 the biodiversity area established very well and provided an excellent habitat for bees, butterflies and ladybirds. A herd of deer and a family of hares also took a liking to the abundance of cover and shade.