If we are to lower food prices and support farmers, we need to restore land
Al JazeeraIn recent years, people everywhere have endured soaring food prices, coupled with growing concerns for the wellbeing of those who produce food. This is one of the reasons why this year’s World Environment Day is calling for land protection and restoration to address land degradation, drought and desertification – and bring immediate social, economic and environmental net gains. Land degradation and drought harm 3.2 billion people worldwide, including across East Africa, India, the Amazon basin, and large swaths of the United States. They need more subsidies, chemicals and fertilisers to make more of less-fertile land, delivering less-nutritious food, and exacerbating the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and land loss, and pollution and waste. But they need to be backed by strong efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including by ending the era of fossil fuels, as climate change is a major driver of land degradation, desertification and drought.
History of this topic
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