FAO Warns Land Degradation Threatens Global Food Security

Around 1.7 billion people live in areas where crop yields are declining due to land degradation caused by human activity, according to The State of Food and Agriculture 2025 (SOFA) report released by FAO. The report warns that this widespread and often overlooked crisis is undermining agricultural productivity and threatening ecosystems worldwide.

FAO’s report underscores that land degradation is not only an environmental issue but also a major driver of declining farm productivity, rural poverty, and food insecurity. Based on the latest global data on farm distribution, size, and crop production, SOFA 2025 provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of how human-induced land degradation affects crop performance. It identifies global vulnerability hotspots and examines how yield losses intersect with poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.

Qu Dongyu, Director General, FAO, emphasized the need for decisive action, noting that sustainable land management requires enabling environments that support investment, innovation, and long-term stewardship.

The report defines land degradation as a long-term decline in the land’s capacity to provide essential ecosystem functions and services. It highlights that degradation rarely stems from a single cause but from a mix of natural processes, such as erosion and salinization, and human pressures, including deforestation, overgrazing, and unsustainable farming and irrigation practices. The analysis focuses particularly on the degradation caused by human activity due to its significant impact on agricultural productivity.

To measure this phenomenon, FAO used a degradation debt approach, comparing current conditions in three key indicators, soil organic carbon, soil erosion, and soil moisture, with baseline conditions that would exist without human interference. Using a machine learning model that integrates environmental and socioeconomic factors, the study estimated reference land conditions in a natural state.

The findings show that about 1.7 billion people worldwide live in areas where crop yields have dropped by at least 10% because of human-induced land degradation. Among them are 47 million children under five suffering from stunted growth. In absolute terms, Asian countries are the most affected, given their population density and accumulated degradation debt.

However, the report points to recovery opportunities. Reversing just 10% of human-induced degradation on existing croplands through sustainable land management practices, such as crop rotation and cover cropping, could restore enough production to feed 154 million additional people annually. These actions could simultaneously strengthen food security, ease pressure on natural ecosystems, and support more resilient agri-food systems.

To achieve this, the report calls for integrated land-use strategies and targeted policy interventions. These include regulatory measures to control deforestation, incentive-based programs, and conditional mechanisms that link subsidies to environmental outcomes.

While land degradation affects farms of all sizes, FAO stresses that policy responses must reflect the structure of agricultural holdings. Smallholders face different financial and technical constraints than large farms, which control most agricultural land and have greater capacity for large-scale implementation. Policies tailored to each country’s specific farm distribution and local conditions can better encourage sustainable practices while discouraging deforestation and overgrazing.