Combating land degradation and desertification and enhancing food security: towards integrated solutions

STRINGER, L; M. AKHTARSCHUSTER; M. J. MARQUES; F. AMIRASLANI; S. QUATRINI ; E. M. ABRAHAM

Bonn

Conferencia; UNCCD 2nd Scientific Conference; 2013

UNCCD Secretariat

This presentation reports on the activities of the Food Security Working Group of DesertNet International, with specific focus on a recent paper that has been submitted for publication. Although theoretically the world produces enough food for everyone, approximately one billion people are estimated to be undernourished. Evidence further suggests that producing more food in an unsustainable way may place a much larger share of the population at risk of food insecurity. In the context of a growing world population and other important sustainability challenges (such as land degradation and desertification, biodiversity loss, a decline in the availability and quality of water, and a changing climate), ensuring that agricultural and food systems are sustainable is a particularly urgent issue, both at present and looking forward to the future. This paper provides an overview of the relationships between food insecurity, land degradation and desertification, and its antithesis, food security and sustainable land management. It situates the review within the wider context of global food systems and the macro-processes that drive land degradation and desertification, placing particular focus on the world?s drylands (i.e. arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas). Despite their limited rainfall and high evapotranspiration rates, the drylands contain more than 40% of the planet?s cultivated land area, thus making a significant contribution to global food production as well as being important for pastoralist and other livelihood activities. It is revealed that food insecurity can be attributed to a range of demand-side and supply-side causes, which include political, economic, social and environmental factors. Land degradation and desertification are shown to be exogenous issues that can amplify and aggravate food insecurity. Addressing desertification, including land, soil, water and plant degradation, can ease the food security dilemma, but may not completely solve it in the presence of other underlying causes.