Studies are clear: failure to halt and reverse land degradation could result in more than 90% of the Earth's land areas becoming degraded by 2050, leading to mass migration, conflicts, and significant food security concerns. Let’s dive into the challenges of land desertification and explore solutions for global land restoration.
Climate change, biodiversity loss, and land desertification are three symptoms of the same issue: a global system that pressures nature way beyond its own regenerative capacities. It is estimated that one third of the world's land surface is imminently threatened by desertification. More than 75% of Earth’s land is already degraded, impacting close to 3.2 billion people (roughly 40% of the world population). With a growing world population to feed, these trends are an alarming wake-up call. According to the United Nations, “This phenomenon ranks among the greatest environmental challenges of our time. Yet most people haven't heard of it or don’t understand it”.
Now, if land is so valuable, then why are extractive strategies (deforestation, mining, monoculture, etc.) still spreading worldwide, when we need a massive shift towards managing approaches that can help regenerate soils? Let’s look for answers to that question in one of the sectors at the forefront of this challenge: the agro-feed sector.
Recent farmers' strikes in Europe have crystallised an alarming discrepancy in farming: a gap is growing between the agro-feed system’s impacts on nature, climate, and soil, and its dependencies on these elements. On one hand, all agricultural practices are, by their essence, highly dependent on predictable climates, stable weather patterns, clean water, and fertile soils. On the other hand, short-sighted and extractive agricultural systems are contributing to exacerbated extreme climate events, soil desertification, and loss of nature. As a result, farmers are facing increasingly unpredictable conditions that threaten their livelihoods and global food security.
Farming solutions and methodologies to halt and reverse land degradation exist. For example, Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) proposes six farming approaches and methodologies that can guide the transition of agri-food systems toward environmentally sustainable and climate-resilient practices (e.g. agroforestry, crop diversification, adaptive breeding, …). But, in order to implement such solutions, collaborative efforts involving agro-feed industry leaders, policymakers, investors, and farmers are needed. Singled-out solutions aren’t enough, the shift calls for a system change.
Indeed, traditional agricultural value chains prioritise optimisation and yield – often at the expense of farmers' autonomy and financial stability – leaving farmers vulnerable to risks associated with long-term investments needed to transition to nature-regenerative practices. Simply put, farmers alone cannot bear the financial risk to implement long-term approaches in a system that is highly reactive to demand and rewarding short-term optimisation of their land.
What is the solution then? Rethinking the food value chain, and creating different financial systems that shift the risk of transition from farmers’ hands to a more resilient financial structure, is crucial. This requires innovative mechanisms of blended finance that distribute pressure and rewards along the value chain, to facilitate the transition towards sustainable agricultural practices.
Agriculture & land restoration: sharing the financial risk with farmers
This systems change approach doesn’t only apply to the agri-food industry or other sectors at the forefront of land degradation (such as eco-tourism, mining, or the textile industry). The S&P Global Sustainable data shows that land desertification concerns a much wider variety of sectors, as 85% of companies in the S&P Global 1200 significantly rely on nature in their direct operations. Potential disruptions in the supply chain, capital losses, and increased operational expenses loom as inevitable consequences if current land-use patterns persist.
At Davos, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification , Ibrahim Thiaw, called on ALL businesses to transform traditional extractive approaches to nature into land-regenerative strategies.
Ibrahim Thiaw: Engaging businesses on land restoration
. integrating into their decision process local communities and indigenous peoples impacted directly or indirectly by their business.
. prepare for, and join the Conference of the Parties (COP16) on desertification in Riyadh, to push for land regenerative policies in their industry sector.
Read more about Ibrahim Thiaw’s business case for land restoration here.
