Breaking point

Breaking Point

As per the recently released the state of the world's land and water resources for food and agricultural ( released by FAO) , water and land resources are being pushed to limits due to human actions.

Highlights

Sources of fodder ( grassland and shrub covered areas) have declined by 191 millions hectares in the past two decades due to the conversion of this to the cropland.

Due to population increase, agricultural land available per capita for crops and animals husbandry declined by 20 percent between 2000 and 2017 to 0.19 ha/ capita in 2017. It was reported that almost a third of rain fed cropland and nearly a half of irrigated land are subject to human induced land degradation which primarily affected the fertility of the soil.

Over 60 percent of irrigated areas are degraded in northern Africa, south and the middle East Western Asia. The rapid growth cities had a significant impact on land and water resources in 2018 , 55 percent of the world 's population were urban dwellers. This meant Encroachment on good agricultural land. Most pressure on the world 's land soil and water resources are from agricultural due to use of chemical fertilizers form Mechanization etc.

Agriculture will need to produce almost 50 percent more food, livestock fodder and biofuel than in 2012 to satisfy global demand and keep on track to achieve zero hunger by 2030.

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