GNV News, 4 September 2026

In recent years, while soil degradation has continued to worsen around the world, proven methods to protect and restore soils have yet to be adopted at the speed and scale required. This is the conclusion reached by the latest report, “The State of the World’s Soil Resources 2026”, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to coincide with the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD (COP17, held in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia). The report is based on scientific literature published between 2015 and 2025 and on the expertise of specialists from 75 countries, and it updates FAO’s first global soil resources assessment released in 2015.

FAO divides the world into seven regions – Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Near East and North Africa, North America, and Southwest Pacific – to assess the state of soils, and in more than half of these regions, the adoption rate of sustainable soil management practices was judged to be “low” or “very low”. More than half of all regions were assessed as having experienced deterioration since 2015, while only about 10 percent showed improvement. Soil erosion in particular is identified as the greatest challenge, with 80 percent of the evaluations across the seven regions (including subregions) rating erosion control as “inadequate” or “highly inadequate”.

Soil produces over 95 percent of the food consumed by humanity, and also contributes to water storage and purification, climate regulation, and the maintenance of biodiversity. Since 2015, the global population has increased by 800 million and the harvested area of major crops has expanded by 80 million hectares, placing even greater pressure on soils. During the conference, experts also pointed out that in South Asia, particularly India, fertilizer subsidies are heavily skewed toward urea, which is contributing to the disruption of the nutrient balance that soils inherently need.

In addition, FAO and the UNCCD jointly released new guidelines, identifying five priority actions: strengthening soil governance; expanding investment in education and capacity-building; improving monitoring systems; enhancing incentives for sustainable management; and decision-making that involves a diverse range of stakeholders (outlined here). FAO emphasizes that a global shift is needed—from a mindset of consuming soil to one of managing and conserving it.

At COP16, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2024, parties failed to reach agreement amid divisions over whether land degradation should be addressed in an integrated way together with climate change, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity. As a result, coordination among countries is again a key issue at the current COP17. How to curb the largely invisible degradation of soils and safeguard food security remains a challenge for the future. There is a pressing need for the world as a whole to advance efforts toward sustainable soil management.

Learn more about measures against desertification → “Africa’s Great Green Wall: Preventing the Expansion of the Sahara Desert”

Learn more about food security → “The Deepening Food Crisis in Southern Africa”