Soil shortage initially ignored (5)
I believe the answer is:
earth
'soil' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'shortage initially ignored' is the wordplay.
'shortage' becomes 'dearth' ('dearth' can be a synonym of 'shortage').
'initially ignored' means to remove the first letter.
'dearth' with its initial letter taken off is 'EARTH'.
(Other definitions for earth that I've seen before include "Land" , "cost of which is very high" , "Familiar example of 1 Across" , "Mud" , "Dirty hole" .)