FAO: Land, water use critical to global food security… going forward

Even more daunting survival-related challenges than presently obtain are likely to lie ahead for countries that are now battling with food security if the alarming picture of a continual loss of scarce resources, painted in a recently released Report by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) persists.

The Report, made public in December, highlights what it says is the continual deterioration of the earth’s soil, land and water resources and the impact that this will have on feeding a global population that is likely to get close to 10 billion by year 2050.

“The pressures on soil, land and water ecosystems are now intense, and many are stressed to a critical point,” FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu wrote in the foreword to the Synthesis Report, titled “The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture – Systems at Breaking Point”. The FAO Director-General said that against this backdrop, “it is clear that our future food security will depend on safeguarding our land, soil and water resources,” in the period ahead.

In his presentation to mark the launch of the study, the FAO Director General also asserted that “current patterns of agri-food production are not proving sustainable even though these can play a major role “in alleviating the pressures and contributing positively to climate and development goals.” And the Report says that if the global trajectory necessary to produce the additional 50 per cent more food needed is to be realised, this would mean that official water withdrawals will have to occur increasingly, a circumstance that could create environmental disasters, increase competition for resources, and fuel new social challenges and conflicts.