The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has warned that soil degradation is placing global food production at risk, with sustainable land management practices still poorly adopted in many regions.

The warning was contained in FAO’s Status of the World’s Soil Resources 2026 report, unveiled at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Ulaanbaatar.

According to the report, research conducted between 2015 and 2025, alongside contributions from experts in 75 countries, showed that sustainable soil management remains at low or very low levels in more than half of regional assessments.

FAO said 58 per cent of the assessments recorded worsening soil conditions since 2015, while only about 10 per cent reported improvements.

FAO Deputy Director-General, Beth Bechdol, said the challenge was no longer a lack of solutions but the failure to implement proven measures at the required scale.

She said countries, farmers and other land users needed access to knowledge, capacity and incentives to adopt sustainable practices.

Bechdol noted that soils are critical to food security because they produce more than 95 per cent of the food consumed globally.

Beyond food production, she said healthy soils help store and filter water, regulate the climate, support biodiversity and sustain livelihoods.

The FAO official also highlighted growing pressure on land resources. She said the global population had increased by about 800 million people since 2015, while the harvested area for major crops expanded by approximately 80 million hectares.

Several factors are contributing to soil degradation, including urbanisation, unsustainable farming practices, industrial activities, conflicts and pollution.

FAO identified soil erosion as the most serious and interconnected threat to soil health. Across seven assessed regions, 81 per cent of assessments rated erosion management as poor or very poor, while 65 per cent reported that the situation had deteriorated since 2015.

The organisation said proven approaches could help reverse the trend while maintaining agricultural productivity.

These include reduced tillage, integrated nutrient management, crop diversification, cover crops, organic amendments and agroforestry.

FAO said the priority should be to scale up the adoption of such practices and treat healthy soils as strategic assets.

The report also advocates moving beyond isolated restoration projects towards integrated management of productive landscapes.

FAO said efforts should focus first on preventing degradation, reducing existing pressures and restoring degraded land and soils where necessary.