“No such thing as a free lunch. Invest in healthy soils”
Close to 1 billion people, or roughly 1 in 8 people,
presently lack sufficient nutritious food, with the most vulnerable of them
living on degraded land. And while the earth’s fertile land is limited, the
vast majority of our food calories still come from the land. When you then
factor in that the fresh water needed to produce our food is filtered by the
land, there is no question that the quantity and quality of the land directly
affects our lives and thus our well-being. As we celebrate this year’s World Day
to Combat
Desertification, the message could not be clearer; in order
to attain food security for all through sustainable food systems we must invest
in our land. We cannot underestimate the importance of healthy soils. The soil
under our feet plays a critical role for food security, as it does for climate
change adaptation and mitigation, essential ecosystem services, poverty
alleviation and sustainable development.
Soils represent at least a quarter of global biodiversity. It
is the basis for the food people eat, the feed for their livestock, the fuel
they use to cook with and the production of fibres for clothes and other uses.
It plays a key role in the supply of clean water. It is the basis for soil
resilience to the effects of floods and drought. Plant and animal life depend
on primary nutrient recycling through soil biological processes. It is not an
exaggeration to say that without soils we could not sustain much of life on
earth’s continents, and where soil is lost it cannot easily be renewed on a
human timeline. Approximately one third of the world’s soil is already
moderately- to highly- degraded due to erosion, nutrient depletion,
acidification, urbanization and chemical pollution. If we allow the current
rate of soil degradation to continue, future generations will struggle to meet
their needs.
Escalating population growth and increasing demand for food
will put an even greater strain on land resources. Estimates suggest that we
may need to clear 6 million hectares of new land every year, until 2050, to
meet the growing demands for food, water, energy and fuel. Yet this pathway
will lead to considerable biodiversity loss and increased greenhouse gas
emissions. These pressures are compounded by the reality that we are presently
degrading the land faster than it is recovering. In fact, we degrade 12 million
hectares of land each year, and lose the opportunity to produce 20 million tons
of grain annually.
This not only impacts us negatively but undermines our goal
of eradicating hunger and poverty for all. Therefore, how we manage the land,
including achieving sustainable agriculture, becomes even more critical for
food security and poverty eradication, especially in developing countries.
But there are solutions. The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity
2011 – 2020 and, in particular, Aichi Biodiversity Target 5 which aims to at
least halve and bring as close to zero as possible the rate of loss of natural
habitats, and Aichi Target 15 which aims to restore at least 15% of degraded
ecosystems, seek to reverse the negative trend of land degradation. In
addition, as part of the post-2015 development agenda, the proposed sustainable
development goal on land aims to chart a more proactive path for our future by targeting
three simultaneous actions: avoid degrading additional land, recover as much as
we can of that which is already degraded, and, for every hectare of land we
degrade, to rehabilitate a hectare of degraded land in the same ecosystem and
the same timeframe. This is an important effort.
Reversing the degradation of soils delivers a range of
benefits including improved nutrient and water management, soil organic carbon
content, natural pest and disease regulation and reduced soil erosion.
Additionally, increasing the efficiency of the use of inputs (e.g. fertilizer,
pesticides and herbicides), simultaneously increases food productivity, reduces
off-farm impacts and increases resilience to climate change.
Achieving food security will also require that we achieve
other relevant Aichi Biodiversity Targets. By 2020 we should seek to realise
that: incentives and subsidies are reformed; plans are implemented for sustainable
production and consumption; fisheries are harvested sustainably; areas under
agriculture, aquaculture and forestry are managed sustainably; pollution,
including excess nutrients, is reduced below detrimental levels; genetic
diversity of cultivated and farmed species, and their wild relatives, is maintained;
ecosystems providing essential services are conserved and restored; ecosystem
resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks are enhanced,
through conservation and restoration, including restoration of at least 15 per
cent of degraded ecosystems, and that traditional knowledge, innovations and
practices are respected and integrated.
During this International Year of Soils, continuing with a ‘business
as usual’ approach in our present patterns of behaviour, consumption,
production and economic incentives will not allow us to realize the vision of a
world with ecosystems capable of meeting human needs into the future. As we
mark the 2015 World Day to Combat Desertification let us strive to restore
degraded soils, and adopt sustainable strategies that sustain ecosystem
services by integrating the management of land, water and biodiversity.
By doing this we can attain food security, help adapt to
climate change and achieve the goals and targets of the Strategic Plan for
Biodiversity 2011-2020.
