A new report from the International Resource Panel (IRP) has stated that 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil and 15 billion trees are lost yearly to land degradation, it therefore urged that there is the need to improve the way land is evaluated in order to unlock its true potential and reverse the lost.
It therefore warned that if current conditions continue, 320-849 million hectares of land will be converted to cropland by 2050 at the expense of the world’s savannahs, grasslands and forests, and as a result, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture may increase from 24 per cent to 30 per cent.
It lamented that erosion, nutrient depletion, acidification, salinization, compaction and chemical pollution have left 33 per cent of the world’s soils either moderately or highly degraded.
As the global population expands, climate change intensifies and more people move to urban areas, it will become increasingly difficult to sustainably produce enough food, fuel and fibre to meet demand without further depleting the world’s finite land resources.
In it released recently in Beijing at a high-profile event to mark the World Day to Combat Desertification, the IRP’s report says that evaluating the long-term potential of land will help the world sustainably meet this demand.
The Panel which is a consortium of 34 internationally renowned scientists, over 30 national governments and other groups hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said: “Land potential evaluations must be completed and applied before changes in land use or management are implemented. No farmer or nation can afford to invest in land management systems that ignore existing knowledge and information.”
“Despite this, land conversions to a single crop and management system continue to occur across areas in which soil, topography, and sometimes climate conditions are so variable that failure across at least part of the project is virtually inevitable.”
