India among countries with highest yield loss due to human-induced land degradation

Nearly 1.7 billion people live in regions where agricultural output was shrinking because of land degradation caused by human activity, a new report showed. This is a growing global crisis that quietly erodes agricultural productivity, threatens food security and damages natural ecosystems.

The alarming human toll of land degradation on croplands was highlighted in the State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2025 report released on November 3, 2025 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. 

The largest affected populations were concentrated in eastern and southern Asia regions burdened by extensive degradation and high population density.

India had some of the highest yield gaps due to human-induced land degradation. 

Populations exposed to degradation-induced yield losses

According to the report, agricultural expansion remained the primary driver of global deforestation, accounting for nearly 90 per cent of forest loss. It has reshaped global land use and transformed land-use patterns across the planet over centuries.

In the 21st century, between 2001 and 2023, the total area used for agriculture fell by 78 million hectares (mha) — a 2 per cent decrease. But within that, cropland expanded by 78 mha while permanent meadows and pastures shrank by 151 mha. 

The regional variations were striking: Sub-Saharan Africa saw cropland expand by 69 mha, accompanied by 72 mha of forest loss, while Latin America recorded 25 mha of cropland growth and 85 mha of deforestation.

Talking about the role of degradation in land abandonment, the report highlighted that around 3.6 mha of croplands were abandoned annually, with land degradation likely playing a significant role in these losses. 

However, the report also pointed out that reversing just 10 per cent of human-induced degradation on current croplands could restore production sufficient to feed an additional 154 million people annually. Further, as per research, restoring abandoned croplands to productive use could potentially feed between 292 and 476 million people. 

The intersection of land degradation, poverty and food insecurity has created deeply troubling vulnerability hotspots around the world. FAO’s analysis shows that the most critical overlaps occur in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where declining land quality aligned with high poverty levels and widespread childhood stunting. In total, about 47 million children under the age of five, suffering from stunted growth, lived in areas where severe yield losses were driven by land degradation. 

Connection between farm sizes and land degradation

The size of a farm was a critical factor that influenced both land management practices and overall food production. The report pointed out that large farms typically invest heavily in advanced technologies that often optimise resource use like water or fertiliser and boost productivity. But these technologies can sometimes inadvertently exacerbate land degradation. 

On the other hand, smaller farms frequently faced significant hurdles, often dealing with more vulnerable land conditions and struggles due to a lack of resources and numerous market limitations.

Of the world’s roughly 570 million farms, 85 per cent were smaller than 2 hectares and cultivate only 9 per cent of total farmland. On the other hand, the 0.1 per cent farmland larger than 1,000 hectares command about half of all agricultural land.

While all farm sizes faced similar levels of accumulated soil organic carbon debt, yet the impacts and response capacities varied dramatically. 
“Large farms in intensively cultivated regions of Europe and Northern America show the strongest causal relationship between historical degradation and current yield losses; the extent of land degradation is masked by heavy input use that maintains productivity at increasing economic and environmental cost,” the authors of the report noted.

Conversely, smallholder-dominated regions in sub-Saharan Africa exhibit large yield gaps driven more by resource constraints than by degradation per se, they added. “Still, degraded soils may respond poorly to inputs when they do become available.” 

Despite facing persistent constraints, including limited access to land, credit, inputs, technology and markets, the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers contributed around 16 per cent of global dietary energy, 12 per cent of proteins and 9 per cent of fats derived from crops. 

“This production profile reflects not only their importance to local agrifood systems and dietary diversity but also their role in high-value crops that can enhance rural livelihoods,” the analysts noted in the report.

The dominance of large-scale operations in globally traded commodities underscores their outsized influence on food availability and their critical responsibility for sustainable land management, they added.