FAO Warns of Urgent Land Degradation Risks in Latin America

The 2025 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) highlights the urgency of addressing land degradation in Latin America. The report shows that this phenomenon, driven mainly by human activities such as deforestation, agricultural expansion, intensive input use, and unsustainable farming practices, threatens productivity, food security, and ecosystem resilience.

Globally, 1.7 billion people live in areas where soil degradation is reducing agricultural yields, with direct impacts on poverty, nutrition, and rural livelihoods. Although degradation affects countries across all income levels, its effects are uneven: in regions dominated by small-scale producers with limited resources, yield gaps widen, while in more intensive agricultural systems, excessive input use temporarily masks soil damage but increases environmental and economic costs over the long term.

The report also presents new data on the structure and distribution of agricultural holdings, showing that while 85% of farms worldwide are smaller than 2ha, nearly half of global agricultural land is concentrated in a very small number of large-scale operations. This landscape underscores the need for differentiated policies based on farm size, along with strategic investments, land tenure security, and mechanisms that align private incentives with public benefits.

SOFA highlights three key points to understand the issue in the region. First, it notes that although Latin America and the Caribbean account for only 2.8% of the world’s agricultural holdings, the region stands out for the presence of large units that concentrate a significant share of agricultural land. This reflects a highly unequal structure that influences both soil degradation and the ability to adopt sustainable practices.

The report also underscored that between 2001 and 2023, the region expanded its cropland area by 25 million hectares but lost 85 million hectares of forests, one of the highest figures worldwide. “Agricultural expansion continues to be a key driver of deforestation, especially in tropical areas of high environmental value,” it reads.

Finally, unlike other regions where farm sizes are shrinking, in Latin America the average size of farms has increased over the past two decades, reflecting processes of concentration and consolidation that affect land governance, access to resources, and rural inequality. In this context, SOFA 2025 stresses that reversing land degradation in Latin America and the Caribbean is an indispensable condition to ensure food security, protect ecosystems, and reduce rural inequalities.

In Mexico, 56.7% of the national territory shows some degree of soil degradation, according to data from the National Commission for Arid Zones (CONAZA). In this regard, agricultural approaches such as regenerative agriculture represent a sustainable alternative for the future of the sector. The International Corn and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) highlighted that regenerative agriculture can reduce farmers’ production costs by between 20% and 30%, while also increasing land productivity.

Mariel Guera, National Research Coordinator of the Statistical Analysis System Program, CIMMYT, noted that around one million cultivated hectares in the country currently use regenerative agriculture. This figure remains very low, as it represents less than 10% of the country’s total cultivated area.

This type of agriculture, Guera emphasized, is capable of increasing yields per hectare in corn and wheat crops. Using these methods, harvests range from 7.4 to 7.8t/ha of corn, while without them yields drop to as low as 2 or 3 tons per hectare. In addition, the scientist explained that this holds true provided weather conditions are favorable, as there have been cases in which extreme drought leads to total crop loss, whereas regenerative agriculture still makes it possible to obtain at least 4 tons per hectare.

In response to the need to train professionals specializing in these practices, Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (UACh) recently announced the creation of a degree program in Regenerative Agriculture Engineering. The institution stated that the launch of this new program responds to urgent challenges such as soil degradation, biodiversity loss, excessive use of agrochemical inputs, technological lag, and the effects of climate change that affect numerous rural communities across the country.