5 Key Findings of Solaw 2021

Land and water systems are just managing to meet the demand placed upon them by an increasingly complex global food system driven by unrelenting population growth. There is little room for expanding the area of productive land, yet 98 percent of global calorie production is derived from land. The environmental integrity of these systems needs to be safeguarded if they are to be kept in play.

The current patterns of agricultural intensification are not proving sustainable. High levels of land and water use are stretching the productive capacity of land and water systems to the limit, and severely degrading land and environmental services in the process. Climate change is expected to increase evapotranspiration and alter the quantity and distribution of rainfall, leading to changes in land/crop suitability and greater variations in river run-off and groundwater recharge.

At the same time, farming systems are polarizing. Large-scale commercial holdings dominate agricultural land use, concentrating many millions of smallholders in subsistence farming on lands susceptible to degradation and water scarcity. Food security for millions of poor is threatened by water scarcity, with groundwater depletion affecting vulnerable rural populations.

The social challenges and environmental risks faced by agriculture continue to proliferate. Pressures on land and water resources arise largely within agriculture and the wider food system, generating significant GHG emissions and aggressive soil and water pollutants. The slow-onset risks of human-induced land degradation, soil erosion, salinization and groundwater pollution may not be salient, yet they run deep and are persistent. The role of soil and water management in reducing agriculture’s GHG emissions will be pivotal.

However, despite this level of pressure, land degradation is reversible. Remedial land management is possible but only under much-reformed land and water governance that can take remediation to scale and distribute benefits to those who depend on stable, long-term access to productive land and fresh water.

There is no doubt that agriculture’s “solution space” has expanded. Advances in agricultural research have broadened the technical palette for land and water management. Rapid improvements in information technology offer the prospect of digital democracy. However, to apply solutions at scale, land and water governance will need adjustment to make advances inclusive and to provide support to farmers for innovation.

Any advance in transforming food systems to meet future demand will require a focus on land resource planning in which systemic analyses of land, soils and water are combined with poverty and food security monitoring. The tools for planning and management are available. Data collection and information dissemination need to improve. Monitoring the effects of climate change in relation to agroecological suitability will prove essential for planning resource use along the entire food value and supply chains.

Implementation of plans through integrated multisectoral approaches need not be complex. Such approaches can be intuitive and may require only close collaboration across sectoral boundaries. However, farmers and resources managers need to be much more risk aware and work together with planners in setting their responses and contingency planning.

The level of support provided to agriculture will need to be redirected to bring about desired gains in the long-term stability of agriculture’s natural resources base and the livelihoods of those who depend upon them. Planning a way out of the downward spiral of land degradation and water scarcity offers promise when combined with forward-looking incentives for climate adaptation and mitigation. There is now scope for progressive multiphased financing of agricultural projects that can be linked with redirected subsidies to keep land and water systems in play.

Finally, no “one size fits all” solution exists, but a “full package” of workable solutions is available. These will succeed only when there is a conducive enabling environment, strong political will, and inclusive governance of land and water.