Global food security threatened by land degradation, UN report finds

Food supply disruptions will become more frequent and food insecurity will rise if land degradation is not immediately reversed in favor of restoration practices such as regenerative agriculture, according to a new report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

“Global Land Outlook 2,” the second edition of the convention’s flagship report, was developed over five years in partnership with 21 organizations and is “the most comprehensive consolidation of information on the topic ever assembled,” according to UNCCD. It finds that “business as usual” has stretched the productive capacities of land and water systems to their limit. This could imperil “our continued survival and prosperity,” according to a summary document.

“We clearly need to stop converting land. … It really is not the optimal way forward. It’s a pathway to disaster,” Barron Joseph Orr, lead scientist at UNCCD, told Devex.

But stopping the expansion of agricultural land will create a growing food gap, he said.

“The numbers are very clear, in population and the model of increasing yield: They’re not going to line up. We’re not going to make enough changes in yield to bridge that. So that means we have to do other things [such as] sustainable but intensified production,” Orr said.

The report explores the potential consequences of three scenarios leading up to 2050: business as usual, restoring 50 million square kilometers (19 million square miles) of land, and restoration coupled with protection measures for natural areas. If nothing is done, 12% to 14% of agricultural, pasture, and grazing land and natural areas will see a “persistent, long-term decline in vegetative productivity.”

“At no other point in history has humanity faced such an array of familiar and unfamiliar risks and hazards, interacting in a hyper-connected and rapidly changing world,” the summary document warns.

Moving agriculture from the primary cause of land degradation to “the principal catalyst for land and soil restoration” requires time and money, it acknowledges. But sustainable alternatives such as agroecology — or the incorporation of ecological principles into agriculture — can help improve soil quality and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while improving land productivity. Regenerative agriculture incorporates principles of climate change mitigation to encourage farming that has a positive impact on the environment.

Vulnerable communities — including the rural poor, smallholder farmers, women, youths, and Indigenous peoples — are disproportionately affected by land degradation and drought, the report says.

“Resilience is what is necessary for land degradation rates to slow down,” Orr said. “In areas where we have a lot of degradation, it means people cannot depend on that land. They move [somewhere else and] … conflict results, right? Very common between farmers and pastoralists. If we can build that resilience … now we’re helping everybody: We’re helping local incomes, we’re helping the land, we’re helping biodiversity. It’s key.”

In addition to food supply disruptions, continued land degradation will contribute to forced migration, land resource conflicts, biodiversity loss, species extinction, and higher risk of zoonotic diseases, the report says. Efforts to reverse degradation must be linked with lowering greenhouse gas emissions, shifting to more sustainable production and consumption, and reducing waste and pollution.

UNCCD is focused on getting policymakers to consider how reversing land degradation — an aspect of Sustainable Development Goal 15 — can also have positive effects on other SDGs, including those related to poverty and food security, Orr said.

Ensuring land tenure security and responsible land governance must also be prioritized, he said, because a legal right to land can help farmers pursue regenerative agriculture.

The report makes the economic case for a massive shift in land use, noting that every dollar invested in land restoration brings between $7 and $30 in economic benefits. The total economic returns from a “regenerative restoration economy” could be as high as $125 trillion to $140 trillion each year — an increase of roughly 50% from the 2021 global gross domestic product of $93 trillion.

Repurposing fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies can help governments finance this shift. Over $700 billion worth of agricultural subsidies are paid out each year, so redirecting just $1.6 trillion of that spending over a decade could help governments achieve their pledge of restoring 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of degraded land by 2030, including 250 million hectares of farmland.

The report’s goal is to be “provocative” and influence the global agenda in a way that changes policies, Orr said.

“This is to get it rolling and basically to move decisions as quickly as possible,” he added. “From a policy point of view, it’s really important to address the bottlenecks so that you can open up progress.”