A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), published on World Soil Day on December 4, states that the quick deterioration is due to erosion, nutrient depletion and loss of organic carbon.
However, it warns that this trend can be reversed provided that countries adopt initiatives to promote sustainable management practices and the use of appropriate technologies.
The document "The status of soil resources in the world", made by FAO's intergovernmental expert group on soils, which brings together the work of 200 soil scientists from 60 countries and coincides with the closing of the 2015 UN International Year of Soils.
'Let us promote the sustainable management of soils based on good governance and rational investments. Together we can promote the cause of soils, which constitutes a solid basis for real life', said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in a message to mark the anniversary.
Soils are of vital importance for the production of nutritious crops, they filter and clean tens of thousands of cubic kilometers of water each year, besides being an important carbon store and help to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse effect gases, thus being essential for climate regulation, explains the study of FAO.
Currently, specialists point out, the soil conditions worsen instead of improving, in particular they highlight that 33 percent of the land is highly degraded due to erosion, salinization, compaction, acidification and chemical pollution.
In this regard, the general director of the FAO, José Graziano da Silva, said the loss of more productive soils would seriously damage food production and food security, increasing price volatility of these products, and potentially plunging millions of people into hunger and poverty.
The proposed solution is sustainable land management, which requires strong participation from all parties, ranging from governments to small farmers.
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