soil bank
- noun
- /sɔɪl bæŋk/
- Archaic
:
banco de tierras
- Many farmers placed their marginal fields into the soil bank to take advantage of the subsidies.
Examples
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The soil bank program aimed to reduce surpluses while preventing soil erosion.
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The government established a soil bank to improve farmland health.
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By enrolling in the soil bank, he helped improve the land’s fertility over time.
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Farmers can enroll in the soil bank program this year.
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By enrolling in the soil bank, he helped improve the land's fertility over time.
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Many farmers placed their marginal fields into the soil bank to take advantage of the subsidies.
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The soil bank program aimed to reduce surpluses while preventing soil erosion.
Surface Forms
Morphology
While 'soil' + 'bank' suggests a reserve or stored supply of soil, the MWE denotes a specific agricultural policy (retiring farmland and paying subsidies) that is not directly inferable from the literal constituents. The connection to the word 'bank' as a reserve gives a partial clue, but the programmatic/policy sense requires domain knowledge, so it is not fully transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Soil bank uses soil and bank as a simple picture: farmers 'take land out of farming' and let the ground rest, like saving soil in a bank. That's why the term now means a 'program' where fields are set aside and farmers get 'payments' while the soil recovers.
