More than 2m tonnes of topsoil from farms and forests is being eroded by wind and rain each year, jeopardising efforts to increase food production, the UK government said today.

The soil erosion is reducing the amount of food grown, increasing the risk of flooding and undermining efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

UK land has been steadily degraded by 200 years of intensive farming and industrial pollution, warned the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in a major study of soils. But it said the situation is not nearly as bad as in many Asian and African countries, where soil erosion due to overgrazing and poor farming practices is now seriously threatening food production.

Rich nations are still gobbling up the world’s resources despite the recession. Photograph: Corbis

Rich consumers are still voraciously gobbling up the world’s resources, despite the worst recession in a generation, with their appetite pushing the planet into “ecological debt” from today , according to a report by think-tank the new economics foundation.

This “ecological debt day” marks the point in the year when consumption around the world exceeds the Earth’s annual “biocapacity” — so for the remainder of the year, we will be eating into environmental resources that will not be replaced, according to nef’s calculations.