More than 1.5 billion people around the world face “significant challenges to grow food due to soil degradation” due to its high salinity, warned the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the presentation of a world map that illustrates this phenomenon.
There are “more than 833 million hectares of soils affected by salinity, that is, 8.7% of the planet”, and although most of them are found in “arid or semi-arid” environments naturally, the map “also shows that between 20% and 50% of irrigated soils on all continents are too saline ”.
Soils affected by salinity due to human action “are less fertile and less productive,” thus posing “a threat to the global fight against hunger and poverty,” the Rome-based FAO warned in a statement. .
The “World Map of Soils Affected by Salinity”, in which 118 countries have participated, will allow “determining where sustainable soil management practices should be adopted in order to prevent salinization”.
This FAO project is “a fundamental tool to stop salinization and boost productivity”, as well as to be able to manage soils that are already affected by salinity.
Among the causes of the salinity of the soils, there are “the bad management of the human being, the excessive or inadequate use of fertilizers, deforestation, the rise in sea level, a shallow water table or the intrusion of sea water. in groundwater ”.
Added to all this is climate change, which “is complicating the situation” and, according to the UN body, “the arid lands of the world could increase by up to 23%, especially in developing countries.”
The presentation of the map took place within the framework of the World Symposium on Soils Affected by Salinity, a virtual conference coordinated by FAO to “raise awareness and combat the problem through various instruments”.
The Director General of FAO, Qu Dongyu, pointed out during the event that “new ways must be found to transform agri-food systems to make them more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable.”
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