Soil mismanagement threatens the survival of many species on Earth – including humans, according to a United Nations body.
Restoring degraded farmland has the potential to ease food shortages.
Healthy soil is also critical to tackling global warming.
The UK is rolling out a plan to pay farmers to manage soil more sustainably.
Scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed about humanity wrecking something very fundamental to all of us: the soil under our feet. Why? Because up to 40% of the land on Earth is now degraded, worsening climate change and causing hunger and poverty.
Land becomes degraded when poor farming practices lead to soil erosion, declining crop yields and a loss of biodiversity. This is contributing to global food insecurity, at a time when the United Nations (UN) is warning that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could leave some countries facing famine because of the loss of wheat exports from the region.
Chronic land degradation directly affects half the world’s population, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). And the UNCCD predicts that if we carry on behaving as we are now, an additional area roughly the size of South America will become degraded by 2050.
Land crisis
“Conserving, restoring and using our land resources sustainably is a global imperative, one that requires action on a crisis footing,” the UNCCD’s Global Land Outlook 2 report warns. “Business as usual is not a viable pathway for our continued survival and prosperity.”
The report suggests hundreds of ways that governments can improve matters. It outlines three possible outcomes depending on whether we do nothing, embark on widespread soil restoration projects or go all out to protect and restore land across the planet.
“Modern agriculture has altered the face of the planet more than any other human activity,” UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw says. “We need to urgently rethink our global food systems, which are responsible for 80% of deforestation, 70% of freshwater use, and the single greatest cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss.”
Halting deforestation is essential to avoiding the worst effects of global climate change.
The destruction of forests creates almost as much greenhouse gas emissions as global road travel, and yet it continues at an alarming rate.
In 2012, we brought together more than 150 partners working in Latin America, West Africa, Central Africa and South-East Asia – to establish the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020: a global public-private partnership to facilitate investment in systemic change.
The Alliance, made up of businesses, governments, civil society, indigenous people, communities and international organizations, helps producers, traders and buyers of commodities often blamed for causing deforestation to achieve deforestation-free supply chains.
The Commodities and Forests Agenda 2020, summarizes the areas in which the most urgent action is needed to eliminate deforestation from global agricultural supply chains.
The Tropical Forest Alliance 2020is gaining ground on tackling deforestation linked to the production of four commodities: palm oil, beef, soy, and pulp and paper.
Get in touch to join our mission to halt to deforestation.
In some cases, restoring soil will mean farmers can grow more food. But it can also help in the fight to control climate change by reducing deforestation. If more productive land is brought back to life, there should be less pressure on farmers to clear forests to make way for new croplands and pastures.
Healthy soils can help to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Image: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
It’s a very slow process, but there are ways farmers might be able to speed it up, such as using soil for a more diverse range of plants, or spreading an additive called biochar. Biochar is a charcoal-like substance produced when organic matter is burnt at high temperatures in an oxygen-deprived environment. When it is added to soil, it has the potential toimprove carbon storage and make the land more fertile.
Changing EU farming methods could have a range of benefits.
Image: World Economic Forum
Paying farmers to raise soil standards
The UK is encouraging farmers to improve soil quality as part of reforms to agricultural policy following Brexit. Much of the country’s soil has deteriorated as a result of intensive farming methods, including mechanization, ploughing up hedgerows and the increased use of synthetic fertilizers andpesticides.
Ways to solve the planet’s soil crisis are being developed, but getting the right incentives for farmers in place will be just the start of a long journey. Theresa Lieb, a Food Systems Analyst with GreenBiz Group, says she felt a “profound sadness” after visiting the US state of Minnesota to investigate the take-up of regenerative farming. Although Lieb met a handful of farmers working sustainably, conventional farming still has a strong hold in the area. “The overall landscape I observed during many hours behind the wheel is desolate. In an hour or more of driving I could count the number of fields using regenerative agriculture practices on one hand.”
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