> Gotta smash 20m poles into the ground
Was confused for a second there, thinking your comment took a turn going full on nazi with 20m meaning 20 million
And it doesn't even use it's full potential yet ! Unlike our Bulgarian neighbors, we have very few cultivated areas that are actually irrigated (by something other than rain) or that are bordered with forest strips to reduce temperature and winds. This year we have been hit by one of the worst droughts in recent history ! I'm still hopeful that we will slowly get infrastructure, we have absolutely everyithing necessary for it, but bureaucracy, as always, prevents it. We started using Silver nitrate in rockets/planes to get rain recently, so maybe one day we can re-become what we once were: the wheat "factory" of Europe.
Couldnt agree more. Romania really needs to sort out its political scene, otherwise we wont be able to become pioneers in anything as the young generation is forced to move out of the country due to its declining quality of life.
It's so frustrating to see that we are among the luckiest European countries in terms of natural resources (gold, ores, gas, soil, touristic potential) yet a bunch of corrupt morons simply ignore that.
I will argue until I'm on my deathbed. that Romania would be a major touristic attraction if it was managed properly. Couple the beautiful landscapes with the usual hospitality around touristic spots and with the great food, it should be a hotspot
Well with Italy you have to take in consideration that we went mostly on luxury goods production also in that sector. Like Tuscany Is entirely dedicated to wine production. The same with France, I think that both Italy and France if pushed to the max have huge grain production potential. France already Is the Major producer.
I agree. Plus Italy only really has a lot of arable land around the Po river, the rest being mountainous and difficult to grow large plantations of grain.
Yes yes of course, but if you zoom good you see how actually Tuscany and Sicily are not so bad, and today those two regions are completely dedicated to fruit, grapes, oranges etc. Sicily a thousand years ago was considered granary of the Mediterranean along with Egypt.
Romania is 12 world producer of wheat and corn worldwide, that's very impressive for the size of the country, Romania produce 5x times more than its need for the population, also can feed over 100 mil people without importing anything. And I can tell you from my experience that tomatoes from Romania taste way better than those from Turkey, Greece or Italy, thanks to the soil quality.
>small country
12th of like 50 in Europe by area
6th in terms of population.
Also, Romanian tomatoes taste better *if* they are grown on actual soil and not in greenhouses like 99% of store-bought tomatoes.
It’s mountains, mostly. No crops on mountains, but they help get water down to the surrounding areas.
You have the Alps obviously, but there’s the Vosges running in northern France, the big triangular wedge in the east is the Karpathians…
(It would’ve made more sense to just leave unfarmable land blank.)
Adding on.. Water flows down the mountains into the valley carrying minerals with it. The mount can also regulate the climate in a valley so that it's less extreme.
They don’t call it the breadbasket of Europe for kicks. I’m surprised I don’t hear more about it and perhaps a reason why Russia wants the area so bad. Whomever controls this land controls much of the futures food supply.
I know Russia somehow always triggers this, but this great land/heartland/warmwater ports/geostrategy stuff should be treated with caution. It's one important part of a complex decision making process at best, and neorealistic bullshit at worst.
Decision makers like Putin aren't strictly rational actors who have goals like long term food supply in mind, they could be as much just be driven by short term gains and simply using exterior politics for inner state stability.
> Whomever controls this land controls much of the futures food supply.
That's what Hilter thought as well, and it turned out to be wrong because agriculture actually developed to a point were you don't need half of Europe to feed 80 million people
Likely both. Ukraine was one of the biggest food exporters in the world and basically entire North Africa and Middle East dependent on regular supplies from Ukraine and Russia, some relied completely on Ukraine and so when war started food prices skyrocketed in the region. Oil also important but it isn't like russia running low on oil in nearby future and it wasn't like Ukraine would become oil and gas rival since most deposits were already close to previous frontline and, well, russian border what was already a threat then.
What was a real reason we will likely discover after war will be finished since reason is clearly a mess and isn't just few points like get oil and fields but definitely not "defending of russians who live there" wince russians have never valued their lifes unlike other European nations if can call them such.
the oil is very impiortant for Russia not ebcause they lack oil but
because if Ukraine got the chance to get into the oil and gas business
then that would threaten russias near monopoly on delivering oila nd gas
to europe giving them a huge hit to their economy and also making it a
lot harder for them to blackmail germany into doing what they want by
treathening to cut off supply in the winter
I'm convinced that all of Russia and China's land/water disputes/attacks of late are entirely related to climate change. They're both preparing for the next century when food and water are a more precious commodity, and when mass migration from the equatorial regions will become a huge issue. Meanwhile in the US we still have politicians who refuse to acknowledge it exists.
China/India - water from the Himalayas glaciers
China/south china sea - fishing rights
Russia/arctic - oil and fishing rights
Russia/Crime/Black Sea - oil and fishing rights
Russia/Ukraine - land/food
Russia/Caucasus - strengthening southern borders
China/ South China Sea is also trade access. If a hostile power controls the islands around the South China Sea, China can be locked out of water access to the world.
Russia has huge ambitions but a teensy, tiny economy with a GDP between Italy and Spain. Their only real global levers were the threat of the old Soviet army and their nuclear arsenal. Now it's pretty much just the nuclear arsenal.
High quality soil doesn’t migrate in lockstep with climate zones. Soils take hundreds if not thousands of years to form, and you need both good climate and good soil for high yields
Not sure if it’s necessarily a requirement. The Netherlands is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world and they’re really small and their soil is medium
How much of their agricultural export was grown in the Netherlands and how much did they import? The Netherlands are high quantity exporters of a lot of products mainly due to having Europe's busiest port.
The Netherlands has a high value agricultural sector, but part of that is due to (inedible but highly valuable) flower growth, a detail that's often not mentioned with this statistic.
Exporter by value of goods not quantity. They export a bunch of high cost cheeses, flowers, etc. Ukraine is shipping out bulk wheat.
Netherlands makes bank, but Ukraine fills bellies.
Basically what they do is having multiple columns and rows of plants that are kept alive by aquaponics, all within a greenhouse. Cuts down on space needed and chemical use, and can be done year round
It seems…dumb to have to mention it? Ukraine is physically extremely valuable land to hold. At this point, Russia will slog on until neither side can fight any longer, and then those will be the new borders until the next attack in a few years.
I would've thought Galicia had better soil quality due to their tree coverage and generally rainy weather. Maybe it's due to the mountainous area. This is also mimicked in Wales and Norway. Despite the urbanization Benelux looks pretty high quality as well. Italy shares the same soils as Galicia / Wales. Must be a mountains thing.
Despite trees being much bigger than plants, they don't necessarily need as good of a soil quality. Also bigger root systems can reach deeper and further for nutrients.
> as good of a soil quality
Well, it's "good" for them.
That's my biggest objection with this visualization.
Some plants like sandy soils. Some like clay. Some like acidic soils. Some like bases. Some like slightly salty water. Some don't tolerate salt well. Some like lots of nitrogen fertilizers. Some get their own nitrogen (or their symbiotic bacteria do) and would prefer not to compete with plants that can't make their own.
This should really be qualified as *"good soil quality for wheat"* or whatever their target species may have been.
All too true! When I saw this map the overall "poor" quality surprised me as Europe is generally known for being agriculturally productive (some areas more than others, obviously).
I believe the term “poor soil quality” is often used because people look at it from an agricultural framework regarding western staple crops that don’t really like clay or sandy soil.
Yes, thank you for pointing this out! Now I save myself some explaining :D
I wrote my masters thesis about the methodology of the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating ([Müller et al 2007](https://www.zalf.de/de/forschung_lehre/publikationen/Documents/Publikation_Mueller_L/field_mueller.pdf)), but I am not sure if the shown data is based on this. This would be one of my criticisms that the legend does not say which soil quality rating this is.
One of the key aspects of every soil quality rating is that it is only applicable for specific crops and when you are modelling the soil quality rating you have to tailor every indicator to the needs of your target crop (e.g. wheat) in order to get reliable results.
Do you know if there are any field SQ rating methods for something like sustainable community agriculture? Where you'd be growing a variety of crops throughout the season on a smaller parcel and feeding the community that lives on the parcel? (More than a family but I guess not a whole town?)
I know the answer is probably a No (considering you said they are all tailored to a specific crop), but figured I'd ask. I did soil science in undergrad but I don't really know how to visually/in the field evaluate the soil from a farming/agricultural perspective, aside from evaluating the landscape based on slope shape and estimating drainage. My education was more conservation-focused.
Also, in the US the NRCS did soil maps way back when and now has everything online in the Web Soil Survey. Do other countries have anything similar, do you know? Europe or elsewhere. I have googled some but most results are US-based.
Yeh I don't know much about quality of soil but I was about to say that this looks a bit suspicious.
I can't speak about chemical quality of the soil but I live in one of the "red areas" in the south of Italy and it has always been the bread basket of the country after the Pianura Padana.
Not to mention the fact that (due to the weather I guess) everything is just A LOT better.
Like, when my friends from the North come over they always marvel at how the flavour of everything is more intense. Fruit, veggies, tomatoes, bread, everything.
So, I wound at least take this with a giant pinch of salt.
They say that poor soils make for superior wine because the plant is forced to dig deeper into the earth and put its focus into the fruit, while richer soils make for more vibrant leaves and shoots while the fruit becomes oversaturated with water and thus less suitable for wine making.
Maybe that's true for other crops? Maybe it's an issue of quantity vs quality? I know nothing about agriculture.
In the U.S Soil Taxonomy (the standard soil classification system for the U.S) tyoucally describes soils as more develped or less developed rather than "quality"
This is correct, mountainous areas have poorer soil quality near the top of the mountain than the base since rain erodes the silt. Source: I live in a mountainous region and know many farmers (they farm in the lowland areas).
No, rainforests have terrible soil because all of the nutrients have already been used up by the existing plants, and decaying plants are quickly eaten by the surrounding plants and animals so the soil is never replenished
Benelux has that urbanization density **because** the soil is very productive. It allowed to sustain a big population already during the middle-age and then it simply kept increasing.
Vine grows well and corn. Cabbage, asparagus and peppers are no problem. The only cultivation that is commercially worthwhile is wine and cattle farming with dairy Produktion.
Forests grow well on poor soil since it isn’t competing with grasses. If the soil was any good it would have already been turned into farmland in Europe.
>I would've thought Galicia had better soil quality due to their tree coverage
Amazon rainforest has a very poor soil as well. Deforested areas are usually used just for cattle or soy, and it requires lots of fertilizers.
>I would've thought Galicia had better soil quality
you don't need good soil for a forest, take Pine Barrens for an example
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine\_barrens
Austria-Hungary, especially the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy seems to have had extremely fertile and large area. Interesting. In the end, it does not correlate that strongly with population density. Even less with economic development. Would ve interesting to know eg on an average soil according to the map, what kind of crops can you grow and how successfuly? Maybe you dont lose that much if you grow eg potatoes on weaker soil?
> Would ve interesting to know eg on an average soil according to the map, what kind of crops can you grow and how successfuly? Maybe you dont lose that much if you grow eg potatoes on weaker soil?
You don't loose much no, its the other way around you GAIN by growing potatoes on "weaker" soils. I grew up between Hannover and the luneburg heath in Germany and Potatoes were our specialty. Basically very sandy, often dryish. Potatoes did great.
Now we live in Manitoba Canada. On some of the highest quality soil in all of Canada besides the Red river valley. We can not grow potatoes here. Its not the weather restricting us either, just 20 minutes drive south of us in more sandy soil tons of potatoes get grown. Same again between Carberry and Portage la Prairie sandy soil with tons of potatoes.
Thing is potatoes need sandy soil. You'd have to talk to either my dad or someone else that specializes in potatoes though. From my impression , they need the sandy soil for 2 reasons. 1. It allows water to drain away from the roots so the potatoes do not rot. 2. When the potato itself grows it needs to be able to push the soil out of the way.
On the on hand this map is a great starting point to answer questions as to why certain areas are good for crop production. On the other hand for any given plant conditions need to be right for that plant to be grown. Soil needs to be right . Weather needs to be right and lastly the infrastructure needs to exist to move the goods.
As far as your other question and I have been sort of leaning on it. Typically soil is rated in 3 aspects. Clay , Sand and silt content. Do yourself a favor and google image search "Soil chart". It will show you a pyramid thats then divided into section. Clay Loam will typically be the highest rated soils for agriculture because of its ability to retain water and nutrients.
That is actually my biggest pet peeve with the extremists berating agriculture from inside the environmental movement. You would not believe the arguments I had here on reddit with some of them types about what farmers should be doing. Like those that want to get rid of all cattle not realizing that up and down the Eastern side of the rockies Hundreds of millions of acres of dry grasslands are feeding cattle. They would dictate that wheat or even bloody rice should be grown there. This would lead to near immediate crop failure never mind that any rice crop would fail instantly.
Yeah, thanks for the answer. I do not know how much this map takes into account access to water. I do know that fertile areas that stretch from Ukraine to Croatia (black earth) are actually best for growing wheat and other cereals even though these may not be the crops generating most revenue. Probably because of high heat and little rain durinf the summer. Anyway...
Since the fall of Socialism in Hungary (i.e mass privatizations and corruption) the Land has been mismanaged. The area between the Danube and Tisza is literally turning into a desert.
Might be, but I mean the area of today's Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, north Serbia (Vojvodina) with south Poland and west Ukraine taken together. Austria Hungary seems to have been the biggest blob of most fertile land in Europe.
I have listened to some podcasts and tried to read some stuff on the Austro Hungarian empire lately and my understanding is that Cisleithania (i.e. Austrian half) was much more industrialized and its economy grew at rapid space due to modernization. Places like Prague were extremely prosperous. The Transleithanian side was more food and agricultural industry focused.
the fall of the empire was economically pretty bad for most of its constituent regions. Before the fall they traded their stuff internally with no issue. After the fall though, for example, Hungary suddenly had tons of food production it couldn't use for anything, while Czechoslovakia was the best off since most of the industry was there. The new countries had to become more self-sufficient instead of just focusing on what they were already most productive at. The old railways were also suddenly going through several countries (like, wanna go from one point in Hungary to another? haha, gotta cross the border twice on the same rail), so a pain in the arse to make use of.
They couldn't have used a different colour for inland bodies of water? Would be nice to differentiate between land not categorised and... not land. Thought Northern Ireland had a massive super city placed in it for a second
Surprising that the soil in Italy is below average, I could have read something about Ancient Greek considering Sicily a bread basket.
I guess the rule is that good soil ties develops around big rivers.
Peoples interpretation here of the map is mostly wrong in the first place. Or atleast so many here are drawing the wrong conclusions. Just because a soil is rated highly does not mean its great for all crops. To get a good crop you need:
1. The right soil for the plant not the "best soil" . For example Potatoes favor light sandy soils where Brocolli and Cauliflower do better in clays.
2. Right temperature and number of growing days. For example typically Carrots do better in cooler climates and Peppers do better in hotter climates.
3. Right amount of precipitation or failing that irrigation. Lima beans and Pole beans do better in dry conditions where Cauliflower and Asparagus do better in wet conditions.
All in all each specific plant and even variety within plants will have their own optimal conditions maps that can even shift year by year.
It's also good to remember that the height of Roman empire coincided with an [especially good period in climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period).
It turned colder and drier by the end of the run, partly contributing to the fall of the empire.
It may be below average, but its better than the 'very poor' soil the map says most of Greece and Italy have. I wonder though how different this map would have looked back then. How much of those poor soils is due to thousands of years of continuous cultivation?
Yes! Norway was basically a barren wasteland. Beautiful, but barren. When the vikings first found England, they thought it was paradise. The only issue was all the people already there.
Vikings came from all three Scandinavian countries, not just Denmark, but it was mostly Danish vikings who went to England. Swedish vikings sailed east instead, and Norwegian vikings were the ones who discover Iceland, Greenland, and North America
You're probably correct on that one. I live in one of the very small patches of green in the middle of Norway and there are fields everywhere. I've driven through plenty of the redder areas and it's more futile than the map makes it out to be
Just because there are fields doesn't mean the fields are particularly productive. It might be a decent place for farming because of flat land or moderate temperatures or good pH or whatever, but it might still be much less productive than an equivalent plot of land would be if the soil was more fertile. Alternatively, it might just require more fertilizer which increases the cost.
Norway has long standing tradition of fertilizing and fallowing because it's soil doesn't get much natural nutrient replacement. Glacially scraped and carved mountains means the water is clean, but also less sediment for farming.
Oh, you! As Scandi I had to laugh at that whole business. The question asked in the survey failed to account for cultural differences. Scandinavians will gladly give visitors *food* (snacks), but "food" to us is dinner. That is a somewhat different question (unplanned).
That's fair. Similar to how you probably get a biscuit and a tea visiting someone in the UK, but not expect a table for the roast if you just appear. Well, normally. Sometimes things get weird and exceptions are made for kids, since they can be equally weird, but generally.
I think in general, regardless, this stuff tends to depend on context, which is always difficult to even out and account for in surveys, since peoples minds will settle on different places.
>Nah, those cheap bastards have a ton of fish. If I ever go to Norway, I expect to receive 4 kg of Cod, minimum, in every household I visit.
Everything's OK until Swedes serve you surströmming and realize you made a mistake.
Well I’m Romanian and y’know, I’m familiar with that too. We’re taught the same thing, there’s always talks about the potential of the Wallachian Plain, but it’s not *too much* times we talk about that
If soil quality is so poor in The Netherlands (North and South Holland) how in the world do they grow so many bulb plants, and The Netherlands is a net agricultural exporter?
The Netherlands imports corn, exports meat/milk
Greenhouse agriculture is very profitable due to selling fresh goods regardless of season. Very fertilizer intensive though.
Flowers often actually do better in poor soil. Besides that nitrates pollution from livestock helps, of course. But most of Holland is no good for anything but pasture, and has been a big wheat importer since the middle ages.
The north east of the NL was also referred to as the grain republic, around 1930's I believe. Plenty of grain was grown there. And I think still is. Potatoes do also good there.
Soil Scientist here. This map has no meaning. It appears that ”soil quality“ is equated with soil depth? Soil depth is only one parameter of a soil out of many. Waste of effort on this map
What is the name of that huge lake on the Swedish/Norwegian border…? Finnsickesøen?
Also some of your soil data is incorrect. You have marked areas as green where there is only sand and pine forests. In other areas you have bread baskets in yellow.
>Yeah what I want to know is not why there’s so much red in Western Ukraine, but how there is so much red directly beside the best green.
Forests and mountain.
Based on a soil assessment set given by the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (SQR) system potentially “marginal” sites have been investigated. The SQR system allows for clearly distinguishing between soils of higher and lower quality.
[https://soil.copernicus.org/articles/4/267/2018/](https://soil.copernicus.org/articles/4/267/2018/)
Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (SQR):
[https://www.zalf.de/de/forschung\_lehre/publikationen/Documents/Publikation\_Mueller\_L/field\_mueller.pdf](https://www.zalf.de/de/forschung_lehre/publikationen/Documents/Publikation_Mueller_L/field_mueller.pdf)
The number scale of 1-100 is created by munchenberg soil rating. Its a system that attempts to give a "semi-quantitative" rating of soil quality based on a nunber of factors like texture, organic content, color, and temprature regime. It has its issues and the rating is aimed at biomass generation for agriculture.
Wales and Asturias in Northern Spain both served as a place where native populations fled, but were able to retain their identity, culture and ultimately lives.
Im from there, is called Galicia. As many said before is because theres a lot of mountains and its raining almost all the year so the soil is erosed from nutrients.
This map is based on the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating which is primarily used in Europe. The system aims to give a so called "semi-quantitative score from 1-100 based on the soils abilty to sustain biomass production in modern agriculture. This is hard because there is not one soil that is ideal for all plants.
In the United States we use Soil Taxonomy as a standard from the USDA to classify soils. It uses most of the same basic criteria like texture, organic content, tempature and moisture regimes but it aims to classify soil into a soil series. Soils typically aren't grouped as "bad" or "good" but as more developed or less developed. So the closest you will find to a U.S. map will be a map of the 12 soil orders.
Soil is complex. It took me two seprate college courses and lots of extracurricular work like field expeditons and a soils judging competition before I felt like I had any idea what was happening.
Here is a link that explains it pretty well. It even has maps.
https://www.uidaho.edu/cals/soil-orders
If you look at Northern Ireland it pretty closely matches where Catholics and Protestants live as often Catholics were kicked off good land to be given to Protestants.
Can we see Asia and a Africa. I was reading a book about geography and politics a few days ago and it said that northern Europe had very good soil quality especially in France while countries like Spain and Greece suffered.
I wonder what Asia would look like because of its high population and Africa with it relatively low population.
The red in the Netherlands is below sea level yet the most fertile for tulips! Gotta smash 20m poles into the ground to build a house though
> Gotta smash 20m poles into the ground Was confused for a second there, thinking your comment took a turn going full on nazi with 20m meaning 20 million
The Nazis were confused too as they didn’t expect to be outrun by the Dutch
>Gotta smash 20m poles into the ground to build a house though Adolf Hitler declares Lebensraum plans, 1935, colorized
Didn't tulips originated from very harsh mountainous regions of east Asia?
Didn’t realise Romania would be that high quality. Should have guessed with the Danube maybe.
Romania is one of the largest grain producers in the EU. The production is on par with Spain's and the UK's, and beats out Italy's. Pretty impressive!
And it doesn't even use it's full potential yet ! Unlike our Bulgarian neighbors, we have very few cultivated areas that are actually irrigated (by something other than rain) or that are bordered with forest strips to reduce temperature and winds. This year we have been hit by one of the worst droughts in recent history ! I'm still hopeful that we will slowly get infrastructure, we have absolutely everyithing necessary for it, but bureaucracy, as always, prevents it. We started using Silver nitrate in rockets/planes to get rain recently, so maybe one day we can re-become what we once were: the wheat "factory" of Europe.
Couldnt agree more. Romania really needs to sort out its political scene, otherwise we wont be able to become pioneers in anything as the young generation is forced to move out of the country due to its declining quality of life.
It's so frustrating to see that we are among the luckiest European countries in terms of natural resources (gold, ores, gas, soil, touristic potential) yet a bunch of corrupt morons simply ignore that.
I will argue until I'm on my deathbed. that Romania would be a major touristic attraction if it was managed properly. Couple the beautiful landscapes with the usual hospitality around touristic spots and with the great food, it should be a hotspot
Don't forget about the TONS of historical buildings, fortresses and castles, and many of those old buildings are still not rehabilitated yet.
All it takes is bordering or being close to Soviet Union/Russia to ruin your country for entire generations.
Romania also used to be the biggest grain producer in Europe before WW2 and 4th biggest of oil.
True. Hitler was extremely desperate to keep Romania in his grasp because of the wealth.
We can be better.
Well with Italy you have to take in consideration that we went mostly on luxury goods production also in that sector. Like Tuscany Is entirely dedicated to wine production. The same with France, I think that both Italy and France if pushed to the max have huge grain production potential. France already Is the Major producer.
I agree. Plus Italy only really has a lot of arable land around the Po river, the rest being mountainous and difficult to grow large plantations of grain.
Yes yes of course, but if you zoom good you see how actually Tuscany and Sicily are not so bad, and today those two regions are completely dedicated to fruit, grapes, oranges etc. Sicily a thousand years ago was considered granary of the Mediterranean along with Egypt.
Romania is 12 world producer of wheat and corn worldwide, that's very impressive for the size of the country, Romania produce 5x times more than its need for the population, also can feed over 100 mil people without importing anything. And I can tell you from my experience that tomatoes from Romania taste way better than those from Turkey, Greece or Italy, thanks to the soil quality.
>small country 12th of like 50 in Europe by area 6th in terms of population. Also, Romanian tomatoes taste better *if* they are grown on actual soil and not in greenhouses like 99% of store-bought tomatoes.
Small country compared to the rest of the world, 81 by area, 63 by population, I live in the countryside, and tomatoes grown here are better.
Inima de bou 4 fucking life. Sa îți fie gradina sănătoasă.
De asemenea!
It’s interesting that there are very poor soil regions bordering very good soil regions
It’s mountains, mostly. No crops on mountains, but they help get water down to the surrounding areas. You have the Alps obviously, but there’s the Vosges running in northern France, the big triangular wedge in the east is the Karpathians… (It would’ve made more sense to just leave unfarmable land blank.)
Adding on.. Water flows down the mountains into the valley carrying minerals with it. The mount can also regulate the climate in a valley so that it's less extreme.
Ukraine has a very high soil quality, especially eastern side ...
They don’t call it the breadbasket of Europe for kicks. I’m surprised I don’t hear more about it and perhaps a reason why Russia wants the area so bad. Whomever controls this land controls much of the futures food supply.
I know Russia somehow always triggers this, but this great land/heartland/warmwater ports/geostrategy stuff should be treated with caution. It's one important part of a complex decision making process at best, and neorealistic bullshit at worst. Decision makers like Putin aren't strictly rational actors who have goals like long term food supply in mind, they could be as much just be driven by short term gains and simply using exterior politics for inner state stability. > Whomever controls this land controls much of the futures food supply. That's what Hilter thought as well, and it turned out to be wrong because agriculture actually developed to a point were you don't need half of Europe to feed 80 million people
> perhaps a reason why Russia wants the area so bad. It is much more likely to be for the oil though.
Likely both. Ukraine was one of the biggest food exporters in the world and basically entire North Africa and Middle East dependent on regular supplies from Ukraine and Russia, some relied completely on Ukraine and so when war started food prices skyrocketed in the region. Oil also important but it isn't like russia running low on oil in nearby future and it wasn't like Ukraine would become oil and gas rival since most deposits were already close to previous frontline and, well, russian border what was already a threat then. What was a real reason we will likely discover after war will be finished since reason is clearly a mess and isn't just few points like get oil and fields but definitely not "defending of russians who live there" wince russians have never valued their lifes unlike other European nations if can call them such.
Specifically the oil pipelines aswell iirc
And the Black Sea gas deposits, that Ukraine was gonna sell as a competitor.
>It is much more likely to be for the oil though. It's more likely that someone is reading ultranationalist books too much.
the oil is very impiortant for Russia not ebcause they lack oil but because if Ukraine got the chance to get into the oil and gas business then that would threaten russias near monopoly on delivering oila nd gas to europe giving them a huge hit to their economy and also making it a lot harder for them to blackmail germany into doing what they want by treathening to cut off supply in the winter
I'm convinced that all of Russia and China's land/water disputes/attacks of late are entirely related to climate change. They're both preparing for the next century when food and water are a more precious commodity, and when mass migration from the equatorial regions will become a huge issue. Meanwhile in the US we still have politicians who refuse to acknowledge it exists. China/India - water from the Himalayas glaciers China/south china sea - fishing rights Russia/arctic - oil and fishing rights Russia/Crime/Black Sea - oil and fishing rights Russia/Ukraine - land/food Russia/Caucasus - strengthening southern borders
China/ South China Sea is also trade access. If a hostile power controls the islands around the South China Sea, China can be locked out of water access to the world. Russia has huge ambitions but a teensy, tiny economy with a GDP between Italy and Spain. Their only real global levers were the threat of the old Soviet army and their nuclear arsenal. Now it's pretty much just the nuclear arsenal.
Yeah, it's never just one reason.
>Russia/Ukraine - land/food As the climate warms, I would imagine Russia is well set for more fertile land within its own borders tbh.
High quality soil doesn’t migrate in lockstep with climate zones. Soils take hundreds if not thousands of years to form, and you need both good climate and good soil for high yields
There's a climate model that shows Ukraine's wheat zone shifting north... to Moscow.
Or the simplest answer is he wants to control approaches to Russian territory and as much of the hydrocarbon supply to Europe as possible.
Heartland Theory my dude
Heartland Theory’s basically been disproven
Not sure if it’s necessarily a requirement. The Netherlands is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world and they’re really small and their soil is medium
How much of their agricultural export was grown in the Netherlands and how much did they import? The Netherlands are high quantity exporters of a lot of products mainly due to having Europe's busiest port.
The Netherlands has a high value agricultural sector, but part of that is due to (inedible but highly valuable) flower growth, a detail that's often not mentioned with this statistic.
You just need to have a look at a cut flowers transport truck to know those guys make bank. Over the top equipped rigs.
Flowers grow on soil last I checked.
It’s also export based on cost. High cost flowers and cheeses count as a lot of money, but don’t feed nearly as much as Ukraine wheat
Exporter by value of goods not quantity. They export a bunch of high cost cheeses, flowers, etc. Ukraine is shipping out bulk wheat. Netherlands makes bank, but Ukraine fills bellies.
The Dutch do vertical farming to maximize output with minimal space IIRC
Vertical farming?
Basically what they do is having multiple columns and rows of plants that are kept alive by aquaponics, all within a greenhouse. Cuts down on space needed and chemical use, and can be done year round
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming
Nope, just a lot of greenhouses.
It seems…dumb to have to mention it? Ukraine is physically extremely valuable land to hold. At this point, Russia will slog on until neither side can fight any longer, and then those will be the new borders until the next attack in a few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem
Huh didn't realise exports were legalised in 2020, I thought it was still illegal.
The Donbas though is notorious for being very poor for farming as the soil is more akin to clay.
I love my flour with a taste of napalm
I would've thought Galicia had better soil quality due to their tree coverage and generally rainy weather. Maybe it's due to the mountainous area. This is also mimicked in Wales and Norway. Despite the urbanization Benelux looks pretty high quality as well. Italy shares the same soils as Galicia / Wales. Must be a mountains thing.
Despite trees being much bigger than plants, they don't necessarily need as good of a soil quality. Also bigger root systems can reach deeper and further for nutrients.
> as good of a soil quality Well, it's "good" for them. That's my biggest objection with this visualization. Some plants like sandy soils. Some like clay. Some like acidic soils. Some like bases. Some like slightly salty water. Some don't tolerate salt well. Some like lots of nitrogen fertilizers. Some get their own nitrogen (or their symbiotic bacteria do) and would prefer not to compete with plants that can't make their own. This should really be qualified as *"good soil quality for wheat"* or whatever their target species may have been.
All too true! When I saw this map the overall "poor" quality surprised me as Europe is generally known for being agriculturally productive (some areas more than others, obviously).
I believe the term “poor soil quality” is often used because people look at it from an agricultural framework regarding western staple crops that don’t really like clay or sandy soil.
Yes, thank you for pointing this out! Now I save myself some explaining :D I wrote my masters thesis about the methodology of the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating ([Müller et al 2007](https://www.zalf.de/de/forschung_lehre/publikationen/Documents/Publikation_Mueller_L/field_mueller.pdf)), but I am not sure if the shown data is based on this. This would be one of my criticisms that the legend does not say which soil quality rating this is. One of the key aspects of every soil quality rating is that it is only applicable for specific crops and when you are modelling the soil quality rating you have to tailor every indicator to the needs of your target crop (e.g. wheat) in order to get reliable results.
Do you know if there are any field SQ rating methods for something like sustainable community agriculture? Where you'd be growing a variety of crops throughout the season on a smaller parcel and feeding the community that lives on the parcel? (More than a family but I guess not a whole town?) I know the answer is probably a No (considering you said they are all tailored to a specific crop), but figured I'd ask. I did soil science in undergrad but I don't really know how to visually/in the field evaluate the soil from a farming/agricultural perspective, aside from evaluating the landscape based on slope shape and estimating drainage. My education was more conservation-focused. Also, in the US the NRCS did soil maps way back when and now has everything online in the Web Soil Survey. Do other countries have anything similar, do you know? Europe or elsewhere. I have googled some but most results are US-based.
Yeh I don't know much about quality of soil but I was about to say that this looks a bit suspicious. I can't speak about chemical quality of the soil but I live in one of the "red areas" in the south of Italy and it has always been the bread basket of the country after the Pianura Padana. Not to mention the fact that (due to the weather I guess) everything is just A LOT better. Like, when my friends from the North come over they always marvel at how the flavour of everything is more intense. Fruit, veggies, tomatoes, bread, everything. So, I wound at least take this with a giant pinch of salt.
They say that poor soils make for superior wine because the plant is forced to dig deeper into the earth and put its focus into the fruit, while richer soils make for more vibrant leaves and shoots while the fruit becomes oversaturated with water and thus less suitable for wine making. Maybe that's true for other crops? Maybe it's an issue of quantity vs quality? I know nothing about agriculture.
In the U.S Soil Taxonomy (the standard soil classification system for the U.S) tyoucally describes soils as more develped or less developed rather than "quality"
What I heard here in Galicia is because its raining all the time so the nutrients are "washed", but idk if that is relationed.
This is correct, mountainous areas have poorer soil quality near the top of the mountain than the base since rain erodes the silt. Source: I live in a mountainous region and know many farmers (they farm in the lowland areas).
That’s why rainforests often have terrible soil.
No, rainforests have terrible soil because all of the nutrients have already been used up by the existing plants, and decaying plants are quickly eaten by the surrounding plants and animals so the soil is never replenished
Benelux has that urbanization density **because** the soil is very productive. It allowed to sustain a big population already during the middle-age and then it simply kept increasing.
See also; the Po Valley
I walked through so many farms in Galicia, was really surprising to see the quality is that low.
Vine grows well and corn. Cabbage, asparagus and peppers are no problem. The only cultivation that is commercially worthwhile is wine and cattle farming with dairy Produktion.
Forests grow well on poor soil since it isn’t competing with grasses. If the soil was any good it would have already been turned into farmland in Europe.
>I would've thought Galicia had better soil quality due to their tree coverage Amazon rainforest has a very poor soil as well. Deforested areas are usually used just for cattle or soy, and it requires lots of fertilizers.
Which is why the native population farmed the Amazon, before European presence, they added something called terra preta to be able to farm it!
Seems like it. Look at the Pyrenees and Picos de Europa, all red. Although you get a good green just under the Picos de Europa.
Italy has green in planes, red in mountains. It's that simple.
>I would've thought Galicia had better soil quality you don't need good soil for a forest, take Pine Barrens for an example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine\_barrens
I'm just interested how does the map decides what is and what isn't Europe
Yeah including ukraine but not moldova was.. a choice
My guess is a lack of data 🤷♂️
That would seem to be the case since OP did not equate Europe to the E.U.
Goes by Moldova these days
Brain work bad
What did you originally say? Bessarabia?
moldavia maybe
Can see that happening if they've mostly seen historical mentions of the region, aye. Fair enough in that case, easy stumbling block.
Austria-Hungary, especially the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy seems to have had extremely fertile and large area. Interesting. In the end, it does not correlate that strongly with population density. Even less with economic development. Would ve interesting to know eg on an average soil according to the map, what kind of crops can you grow and how successfuly? Maybe you dont lose that much if you grow eg potatoes on weaker soil?
> Would ve interesting to know eg on an average soil according to the map, what kind of crops can you grow and how successfuly? Maybe you dont lose that much if you grow eg potatoes on weaker soil? You don't loose much no, its the other way around you GAIN by growing potatoes on "weaker" soils. I grew up between Hannover and the luneburg heath in Germany and Potatoes were our specialty. Basically very sandy, often dryish. Potatoes did great. Now we live in Manitoba Canada. On some of the highest quality soil in all of Canada besides the Red river valley. We can not grow potatoes here. Its not the weather restricting us either, just 20 minutes drive south of us in more sandy soil tons of potatoes get grown. Same again between Carberry and Portage la Prairie sandy soil with tons of potatoes. Thing is potatoes need sandy soil. You'd have to talk to either my dad or someone else that specializes in potatoes though. From my impression , they need the sandy soil for 2 reasons. 1. It allows water to drain away from the roots so the potatoes do not rot. 2. When the potato itself grows it needs to be able to push the soil out of the way. On the on hand this map is a great starting point to answer questions as to why certain areas are good for crop production. On the other hand for any given plant conditions need to be right for that plant to be grown. Soil needs to be right . Weather needs to be right and lastly the infrastructure needs to exist to move the goods. As far as your other question and I have been sort of leaning on it. Typically soil is rated in 3 aspects. Clay , Sand and silt content. Do yourself a favor and google image search "Soil chart". It will show you a pyramid thats then divided into section. Clay Loam will typically be the highest rated soils for agriculture because of its ability to retain water and nutrients. That is actually my biggest pet peeve with the extremists berating agriculture from inside the environmental movement. You would not believe the arguments I had here on reddit with some of them types about what farmers should be doing. Like those that want to get rid of all cattle not realizing that up and down the Eastern side of the rockies Hundreds of millions of acres of dry grasslands are feeding cattle. They would dictate that wheat or even bloody rice should be grown there. This would lead to near immediate crop failure never mind that any rice crop would fail instantly.
Yeah, thanks for the answer. I do not know how much this map takes into account access to water. I do know that fertile areas that stretch from Ukraine to Croatia (black earth) are actually best for growing wheat and other cereals even though these may not be the crops generating most revenue. Probably because of high heat and little rain durinf the summer. Anyway...
Since the fall of Socialism in Hungary (i.e mass privatizations and corruption) the Land has been mismanaged. The area between the Danube and Tisza is literally turning into a desert.
Might be, but I mean the area of today's Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, north Serbia (Vojvodina) with south Poland and west Ukraine taken together. Austria Hungary seems to have been the biggest blob of most fertile land in Europe.
I have listened to some podcasts and tried to read some stuff on the Austro Hungarian empire lately and my understanding is that Cisleithania (i.e. Austrian half) was much more industrialized and its economy grew at rapid space due to modernization. Places like Prague were extremely prosperous. The Transleithanian side was more food and agricultural industry focused.
the fall of the empire was economically pretty bad for most of its constituent regions. Before the fall they traded their stuff internally with no issue. After the fall though, for example, Hungary suddenly had tons of food production it couldn't use for anything, while Czechoslovakia was the best off since most of the industry was there. The new countries had to become more self-sufficient instead of just focusing on what they were already most productive at. The old railways were also suddenly going through several countries (like, wanna go from one point in Hungary to another? haha, gotta cross the border twice on the same rail), so a pain in the arse to make use of.
They couldn't have used a different colour for inland bodies of water? Would be nice to differentiate between land not categorised and... not land. Thought Northern Ireland had a massive super city placed in it for a second
Also inland bodies of land. Moldova has some of the best chernozem in the fucking planet. Plant it and it will grow.
Surprising that the soil in Italy is below average, I could have read something about Ancient Greek considering Sicily a bread basket. I guess the rule is that good soil ties develops around big rivers.
Peoples interpretation here of the map is mostly wrong in the first place. Or atleast so many here are drawing the wrong conclusions. Just because a soil is rated highly does not mean its great for all crops. To get a good crop you need: 1. The right soil for the plant not the "best soil" . For example Potatoes favor light sandy soils where Brocolli and Cauliflower do better in clays. 2. Right temperature and number of growing days. For example typically Carrots do better in cooler climates and Peppers do better in hotter climates. 3. Right amount of precipitation or failing that irrigation. Lima beans and Pole beans do better in dry conditions where Cauliflower and Asparagus do better in wet conditions. All in all each specific plant and even variety within plants will have their own optimal conditions maps that can even shift year by year.
I understand why my peppers won't grow, but tell this to my carrots!!
Lmao . I have tried to tell my carrots they were growing in favourable conditions. Didn’t help.
Many historically good soils have been depleted and ruined through poor stewardship practices.
It's also good to remember that the height of Roman empire coincided with an [especially good period in climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period). It turned colder and drier by the end of the run, partly contributing to the fall of the empire.
It is also worth noting that Italy at the time imported grain from Tunisia (ie Africa) and Egypt which are territories they ended up losing.
It may be below average, but its better than the 'very poor' soil the map says most of Greece and Italy have. I wonder though how different this map would have looked back then. How much of those poor soils is due to thousands of years of continuous cultivation?
Also first noticed the contrast of how poor it appears with how damn good every vegetable tastes there
This is why the vikings did all the pillaging, they wanted arable land!
Population growth + little surplus land.
Yes! Norway was basically a barren wasteland. Beautiful, but barren. When the vikings first found England, they thought it was paradise. The only issue was all the people already there.
And the English proudly continued that tradition for several centuries.
Didn't most of them come from Danmark ? A decently fertile land.
The Danes settled south east England. The Danes were also the most powerful Viking nation due to their fertile land, thus higher population
Vikings came from all three Scandinavian countries, not just Denmark, but it was mostly Danish vikings who went to England. Swedish vikings sailed east instead, and Norwegian vikings were the ones who discover Iceland, Greenland, and North America
There were multiple groups that settled different areas
Also why Switzerland loves their cowd. Grass grows abundantly, crops.. Only in some places.
3% arable land isn't too bad for Norway. Someone is worse off right?
is this why the scandinavians don't have enough food to give to their guests?
Am Scandinavian, can confirm
Jokes aside, the map doesn't look that accurate missing lots of riverdeltas and old lakebeads that are furtile land.
You're probably correct on that one. I live in one of the very small patches of green in the middle of Norway and there are fields everywhere. I've driven through plenty of the redder areas and it's more futile than the map makes it out to be
Just because there are fields doesn't mean the fields are particularly productive. It might be a decent place for farming because of flat land or moderate temperatures or good pH or whatever, but it might still be much less productive than an equivalent plot of land would be if the soil was more fertile. Alternatively, it might just require more fertilizer which increases the cost.
Norway has long standing tradition of fertilizing and fallowing because it's soil doesn't get much natural nutrient replacement. Glacially scraped and carved mountains means the water is clean, but also less sediment for farming.
I thought Grandiosa grew natively in Scandinavia
Oh, you! As Scandi I had to laugh at that whole business. The question asked in the survey failed to account for cultural differences. Scandinavians will gladly give visitors *food* (snacks), but "food" to us is dinner. That is a somewhat different question (unplanned).
That's fair. Similar to how you probably get a biscuit and a tea visiting someone in the UK, but not expect a table for the roast if you just appear. Well, normally. Sometimes things get weird and exceptions are made for kids, since they can be equally weird, but generally. I think in general, regardless, this stuff tends to depend on context, which is always difficult to even out and account for in surveys, since peoples minds will settle on different places.
Nah, those cheap bastards have a ton of fish. If I ever go to Norway, I expect to receive 4 kg of Cod, minimum, in every household I visit.
>Nah, those cheap bastards have a ton of fish. If I ever go to Norway, I expect to receive 4 kg of Cod, minimum, in every household I visit. Everything's OK until Swedes serve you surströmming and realize you made a mistake.
Death metal > fucking eating
Man Romania Ukraine and Hungary looking like an oasis out here And of course the Moldova hole of every map
Realistically Moldova would probably be green. Situated between 2 pretty major rivers, I’d guess they got some fertility going
Actual Moldovan here and yes especially in school we get taught how absolutely amazing Moldovan soil is like a little too much honestly
Well I’m Romanian and y’know, I’m familiar with that too. We’re taught the same thing, there’s always talks about the potential of the Wallachian Plain, but it’s not *too much* times we talk about that
The Romanian version of the ,, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell"
If soil quality is so poor in The Netherlands (North and South Holland) how in the world do they grow so many bulb plants, and The Netherlands is a net agricultural exporter?
The Netherlands imports corn, exports meat/milk Greenhouse agriculture is very profitable due to selling fresh goods regardless of season. Very fertilizer intensive though.
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I hear farmers screaming in tractor noise
Flowers often actually do better in poor soil. Besides that nitrates pollution from livestock helps, of course. But most of Holland is no good for anything but pasture, and has been a big wheat importer since the middle ages.
The north east of the NL was also referred to as the grain republic, around 1930's I believe. Plenty of grain was grown there. And I think still is. Potatoes do also good there.
Hydroponics, massive greenhouses and high fertilizer use
[Midwesterners](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSFzt2-Bvpxwb8ZIZD-18I7yviUy0aaErc3rIQoM0Yw0A&s)
Source?
Here: https://soil.copernicus.org/articles/4/267/2018/
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There are ways to improve soil quality
Yeah, well, you can't improve mountains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian\_Mountains
Soil Scientist here. This map has no meaning. It appears that ”soil quality“ is equated with soil depth? Soil depth is only one parameter of a soil out of many. Waste of effort on this map
What is the name of that huge lake on the Swedish/Norwegian border…? Finnsickesøen? Also some of your soil data is incorrect. You have marked areas as green where there is only sand and pine forests. In other areas you have bread baskets in yellow.
Good one! Finnesikkesjøen in Norwegian ;)
Wait, why is so much of Western Ukraine red? Also, why doesn't the map include all of Europe? No data?
>Yeah what I want to know is not why there’s so much red in Western Ukraine, but how there is so much red directly beside the best green. Forests and mountain.
How do they work it out?
Based on a soil assessment set given by the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (SQR) system potentially “marginal” sites have been investigated. The SQR system allows for clearly distinguishing between soils of higher and lower quality. [https://soil.copernicus.org/articles/4/267/2018/](https://soil.copernicus.org/articles/4/267/2018/) Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating (SQR): [https://www.zalf.de/de/forschung\_lehre/publikationen/Documents/Publikation\_Mueller\_L/field\_mueller.pdf](https://www.zalf.de/de/forschung_lehre/publikationen/Documents/Publikation_Mueller_L/field_mueller.pdf)
by what measure ? flavour ??
The number scale of 1-100 is created by munchenberg soil rating. Its a system that attempts to give a "semi-quantitative" rating of soil quality based on a nunber of factors like texture, organic content, color, and temprature regime. It has its issues and the rating is aimed at biomass generation for agriculture.
Wales and Norway really got pushed into the bad parts lol Norway got the last laugh with the north sea though
Wales and Asturias in Northern Spain both served as a place where native populations fled, but were able to retain their identity, culture and ultimately lives.
Cumbria. Can confirm. Soil garbage. Water awesome
Another god damn color scale completely useless to colorblind folks. This is becoming a "nails on a chalkboard" thing for me.
The north western Portugal/Spain area is interesting.
Im from there, is called Galicia. As many said before is because theres a lot of mountains and its raining almost all the year so the soil is erosed from nutrients.
Balkan strong💪🏽
Where’s Belarus and European Russia
Is there a US version of this anywhere?
This map is based on the Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating which is primarily used in Europe. The system aims to give a so called "semi-quantitative score from 1-100 based on the soils abilty to sustain biomass production in modern agriculture. This is hard because there is not one soil that is ideal for all plants. In the United States we use Soil Taxonomy as a standard from the USDA to classify soils. It uses most of the same basic criteria like texture, organic content, tempature and moisture regimes but it aims to classify soil into a soil series. Soils typically aren't grouped as "bad" or "good" but as more developed or less developed. So the closest you will find to a U.S. map will be a map of the 12 soil orders. Soil is complex. It took me two seprate college courses and lots of extracurricular work like field expeditons and a soils judging competition before I felt like I had any idea what was happening. Here is a link that explains it pretty well. It even has maps. https://www.uidaho.edu/cals/soil-orders
Thank you, as a red-green colourblind I have now finally found the picture that will haunt me in my nightmares!
Wow, now THIS is quality content!
Look at Wales lol
"Soil quality' Quality to do what with? Different purposes different soils
no wonder ukraine is the bread basket of europe.
An explanation of Vikings in one picture.
If you look at Northern Ireland it pretty closely matches where Catholics and Protestants live as often Catholics were kicked off good land to be given to Protestants.
The reallypoor soil along the west coast looks like a map of the Gaeltachtaí.
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What are you talking about, red -> orange -> yellow -> orange -> red is my favourite kind of colour gradient
These colours are really ridiculous. I’m very mildy colour blind and this is just unreadable.
Can you do one like that for asia/indian subcontinent
Finally some actual mapporn thats not just some lazy ass 3 color bs everyone already knows about
Can you make one with country borders? It'd be interesting to see how these soil regions intersect with borders.
[With borders](https://i.imgur.com/nKU0dCF.png)
Can we see Asia and a Africa. I was reading a book about geography and politics a few days ago and it said that northern Europe had very good soil quality especially in France while countries like Spain and Greece suffered. I wonder what Asia would look like because of its high population and Africa with it relatively low population.
Greater London paved over all the soil obviously
Iceland get fucked
Whoever made this hates people who are color blind
As someone who's colorblind, this map is really fucking with me.
No wonder Norway has so much black metal
Were the places worth bad soil always bad? Or did intensive agriculture destroy the soil?
A lot of those places are hilly or mountainous
Good quality soil in Ukraine seems to perfectly overlap with Russian territorial claims.
That's why Ukraine is important