The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has warned that worsening soil degradation poses a serious threat to global food production, with proven measures to protect and restore soil health still not being adopted on a sufficient scale.
The warning was contained in FAO’s Status of the World’s Soil Resources 2026 report, launched at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Ulaanbaatar.
According to a statement issued by the organisation on Thursday, the report drew on research conducted between 2015 and 2025, as well as expertise from 75 countries.
The assessment found that the adoption of sustainable soil management practices remained low or very low in more than half of the regional assessments reviewed.
FAO said 58 per cent of the assessments recorded a deterioration in soil conditions since 2015, while only about 10 per cent reported improvements.
FAO Deputy Director-General, Beth Bechdol, said the situation required countries to urgently scale up efforts to protect and restore soil resources.
“Proven solutions are still not being adopted at the pace and scale required. The priority now is to give countries, farmers and other land users the knowledge, capacity and incentives they need to put those solutions into practice,” she said.
Bechdol noted that soils are fundamental to global food security, producing more than 95 per cent of the food consumed worldwide.
She added that healthy soils also play critical roles in storing and filtering water, regulating the climate, supporting biodiversity and sustaining livelihoods.
According to the report, the global population has increased by about 800 million people since 2015, while the harvested area devoted to major crops has expanded by approximately 80 million hectares.
FAO identified urbanisation, unsustainable agricultural practices, industrial activities, conflicts and pollution as major factors contributing to land degradation and the loss of soil functions.
The organisation further identified soil erosion as the most severe and interconnected threat to soil health.
Across the seven regions assessed, 81 per cent of assessments rated erosion management as poor or very poor, while 65 per cent reported that the situation had deteriorated since 2015.
FAO, however, said a range of proven practices could help reverse soil degradation while maintaining or improving agricultural productivity.
These measures include reduced tillage, integrated nutrient management, crop diversification, the use of cover crops, organic amendments and agroforestry.
The organisation called for greater adoption of such practices, stressing that protecting soil resources would be critical to sustaining food production and livelihoods as global population and agricultural demands continue to grow.
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