Human activity has degraded over 70% of Earth’s land, with 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost annually. It takes up to 1,000 years to produce just 2-3 cm of soil. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 11 2024 (IPS)

The available data is self-explanatory: business-prompted human activities have already altered over 70% of the Earth’s lands, with 24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost due to industrial agriculture, the excessive use of chemicals, overgrazing, deforestation, pollution and other major threats.

Human-caused extreme weather events, such as heavy rains followed by drought, accelerate soil degradation, while deforestation and overgrazing reduce soil quality by compacting it and depleting essential nutrients.

Much so that the United Nations system has identified that more than 40% of all fertile soils are already degraded.

This consequence is alarming enough if you learn that “it can take up to 1.000 years to produce just 2-3 cm of soil,” as explained by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and other specialised bodies like the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The case of Africa

In the specific case of Africa, which is home to 1.3 billion people, this vast continent is responsable for barely 2-3% of global warming, yet falls prey to over 80% of its devastating consequences.

Add to this that African fertile soils are highly ambitioned by the international commercial business of massive food production and trade, which are generated through land grabbing, which leads to loss of fertility and water scarcity.

Consequently, Africa is usually associated with severe droughts, land degradation, hunger and famine, let alone the exploitation of its mineral resources, and dozens of armed conflicts.

The five major threats:

According to the UN, these are the five biggest causes and effects of the human-made disastrous situation:

1. Drought

Over one-third of the world’s population lives in water-scarce regions, according to the UNCCD’s Global Land Outlook report.

As land degrades, soil loses its ability to retain water, leading to vegetation loss and creating a vicious cycle of drought and erosion.

“This issue, exacerbated by climate change, is particularly severe in Sub-Saharan Africa, contributing to food insecurity and famine.”

Add to this that African fertile soils are highly ambitioned by the international commercial business of massive food production and trade, generated through land grabbing.

2. Land degradation

Human activity has altered more than 70% of the Earth’s land, causing widespread degradation of forests, peatlands, and grasslands to name a few ecosystems. This diminishes soil fertility, reduces crop yields and threatens food security.

3. Industrial farming

While industrial farming produces large volumes of food, it significantly harms soil health.

The use of heavy machinery, tilling, monocropping, and excessive pesticide and fertilizer use degrades soil quality, pollutes water sources and contributes to biodiversity loss.

Industrial agriculture also accounts for about 22% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

4. Chemicals and pollution

Soil pollution, often invisible, harms plant, animal and human health. Industrial processes, mining, poor waste management and unsustainable farming practices introduce chemicals, like synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and heavy metals, into the soil.

Excessive fertilizer use disrupts nutrient balance, while pesticides harm beneficial soil organisms, like earthworms and fungi. Heavy metals, like lead and mercury, accumulate in the soil, interfering with microbial activity and plant nutrient uptake.

5. Diet and nutrition

The world’s current diet and nutritional choices significantly affect soil health through the agricultural practices used to produce food. Diets reliant on staple crops, like wheat, corn and rice, often promote intensive monoculture farming.

This practice depletes soil nutrients, reduces organic matter, and leads to compaction and erosion.

Similarly, diets high in animal products, particularly beef, increase land use for grazing and feed crops. Overgrazing by livestock exacerbates soil compaction and erosion.

With these facts in hand, no wonder that the UN declared the years 2021 through 2030  the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Any way out?

There are too many factors to justify the pressing need to act.

“Our planet’s survival depends on the precious link with soil. Over 95 percent of our food comes from soils. Besides, they supply 15 of the 18 naturally occurring chemical elements essential to plants,” the UN reminds.

The world body also reminds that there are solutions through feasible sustainable soil management practices, such as minimum tillage, crop rotation, organic matter addition, and cover cropping, improve soil health, reduce erosion and pollution, and enhance water infiltration and storage.

These practices also preserve soil biodiversity, improve fertility, and contribute to carbon sequestration, playing a crucial role in the fight against climate change.

Up to 58% more food could be produced through sustainable soil management, the UN unveils, and warns that agricultural production will have to increase by 60% to meet the global food demand in 2050.

The obscene greed…

Despite all the above, and no matter how many summits are held, greed standing behind such depletion remains unaltered.

In fact, giant industrial corporations – mostly originating in Western countries – seem to have no limits in their practices of making more and more profits, at any cost, including poisoning human, fauna and flora, in short, the whole natural system.

Much so that “big business’ windfall profits rocket to “obscene” $1 trillion a year amid cost-of-living crisis,” according to Oxfam, a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice, and ActionAid, a global federation working for a world free from poverty and injustice.

“722 mega-corporations raked in $1 trillion a year in windfall profits each year for the past two years amid soaring prices and interest rates, while billions of people are having to cut back or go hungry,” unveil the two big civil society coalitions.

Only business matters?

A small tax on just seven of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies could grow the UN Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage by more than 2000%, as shown in an analysis by environmental organisations Greenpeace International and Stamp Out Poverty.

“Taxing ExxonMobil’s 2023 extraction could pay for half the cost of Hurricane Beryl, which ravaged large parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and the USA…

… Taxing Shell’s 2023 extraction could cover much of Typhoon Carina’s damages, one of the worst that the Philippines experienced this year. Taxing TotalEnergies’ 2023 extraction could cover over 30 times Kenya’s 2024 floods.”

What appears to matter most is that the business of global trade is poised to hit a record 33 trillion USD in 2024, marking a 1 trillion USD increase over 2023, according to the UN trade and development body (UNCTAD)’s Global Trade Update.