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In Brief to The State of Food and Agriculture 2025

Addressing land degradation across landholding scales










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Updated 05/11/2025


FAO. 2025. In Brief to The State of Food and Agriculture 2025 – Addressing land degradation across landholding scales. Rome.




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    Book (series)
    The State of Food and Agriculture 2025
    Addressing land degradation across landholding scales
    2025
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    The 2025 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture explores the theme “Addressing land degradation across landholding scales”. It examines the implications of human-induced land degradation for agricultural production, producers of all scales and vulnerable populations. The report presents new findings on how cropland degradation contributes to the yield gap worldwide against a backdrop of broader degradation processes on other land cover types and even land abandonment. Drawing on the latest data on global farm distribution, farm sizes and crop production, the report highlights how the scale at which land is managed shapes both the constraints and the opportunities for adopting sustainable land use and management practices. It also underscores the importance of policymaking that encompasses regulatory and incentive-based measures, tailored to the varied conditions and scales of land use, to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation.
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    Book (series)
    The State of Food and Agriculture 2020
    Overcoming water challenges in agriculture
    2020
    Intensifying water constraints threaten food security and nutrition. Thus, urgent action is needed to make water use in agriculture more sustainable and equitable. Irrigated agriculture remains by far the largest user of freshwater, but scarcity of freshwater is a growing problem owing to increasing demand and competition for freshwater resources. At the same time, rainfed agriculture is facing increasing precipitation variability driven by climate change. These trends will exacerbate disputes among water users and inequality in access to water, especially for small-scale farmers, the rural poor and other vulnerable populations. The State of Food and Agriculture 2020 presents new estimates on the pervasiveness of water scarcity in irrigated agriculture and of water shortages in rainfed agriculture, as well as on the number of people affected. It finds major differences across countries, and also substantial spatial variation within countries. This evidence informs a discussion of how countries may determine appropriate policies and interventions, depending on the nature and magnitude of the problem, but also on other factors such as the type of agricultural production system and countries’ level of development and their political structures. Based on this, the publication provides guidance on how countries can prioritize policies and interventions to overcome water constraints in agriculture, while ensuring efficient, sustainable and equitable access to water.

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