Shrinking arable land affects 2.3 billion people
On September 19, the United Nations warned that the shrinking area of arable land has now seriously affected 2.3 billion people currently living in over 100 countries around the world.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed that more than 12 million hectares of arable land are being lost every year due to desertification, an area equivalent to the size of South Africa is lost every decade. The loss of arable land is largely due to poor land management practices and climate change, which has increased the dry areas that now cover 40% of the Earth's landmass.
The UN Secretary-General noted that if the international community does not act to reverse this trend, the world risks failing to increase food production by 70% to meet the needs of a global population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. The population currently living in dry areas is the poorest and most vulnerable to hunger in the world.
Controlling and reversing desertification, preventing the impacts of drought and restoring degraded farmland will open up opportunities to directly promote positive poverty reduction, improve the lives of the poor and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Tackling desertification would ensure long-term sustainability of poverty reduction and development in the world's poorest regions, especially in a rapidly growing world population.
More than 100 heads of state and government from around the world will attend a United Nations Summit on the sidelines of the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss measures to ensure the success of the fight against desertification.
To develop better policies for effective and sustainable land management based on sound science, the United Nations calls for the establishment of a Global Scientific Committee to foster stronger ties between the world’s scientific communities and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and to raise awareness of the risks of land degradation and the urgent need for global collective action./.
(According to Vietnam+)
