The Dirt on Soil Erosion
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA 
on 08.31.07
Photo credit: MontanaRaven
Soil erosion runs far deeper than we might think. In fact, we could be looking at a "silent global crisis"—one that is undermining food production and water availability, not to mention responsible for 30 percent of greenhouse gases.
"We are overlooking soil as the foundation of all life on Earth," Andres Arnalds, assistant director of the Icelandic Soil Conservation Service, told IPS News. "Soil and vegetation is being lost at an alarming rate around the globe, which in turn has devastating effects on food production and accelerates climate change."
Around 38,600 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) is stripped of its vegetarian or turns into desert. "Land degradation and desertification may be regarded as the silent crisis of the world, a genuine threat to the future of humankind," Arnalds said.
Although food production has more or less kept pace with population growth by increasing 50 percent between 1980 and 2000, it is unclear whether we'll have enough food to feed the estimated three billion more mouths in 2050. To do that, Arnalds said, we'd need to produce more food within the next 50 years than humankind has during the last 10,000 years combined, which might be a nearly impossible task considering global food production per hectare is already on the decline. One of the reasons for that decline is that soil degradation produces growing shortages of water. (No soil and vegetation, no way to keep moisture locked in).
Another challenge to food production and land and water conservation is the rising interest in vegetable-based biofuels, which requires the use of hundreds of millions of square kilometers of farmland and cleared rainforests.
If degraded land is to be restored and humanity is to survive, a number of fundamental policy changes need to be made, including an end to the estimated 30 billion dollars in food subsidies in the north that contribute directly to land degradation in Africa and elsewhere—and which forces poor farmers to intensify production in order to compete, said Zafar Adeel, director of the United Nations University's Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health. No formal agreement yet exists to protect the world's soils.
"We have battled very severe land degradation in Iceland that has taken us 100 years to tackle," Arnalds said, noting that Iceland should serve as both a warning to other countries, while providing hope that it is possible to restore degraded lands with enough resources and political wherewithal.
"It is far better to preserve than restore," he said. No truer words. ::IPS News
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"Another challenge to food production and land and water conservation is..." overpopulation. Actually, that's the only one.
Is anyone paying attention?
It's great to see this most serious topic being broached on Treehugger. Earth, while I agree population growth is indeed an immensely serious problem, the incredibly inefficient and destructive way we use our resources should not be ignored. In fact, the former argument can become an excuse to ignore the latter. There is a great deal of positive change that can be made, but (as the writer suggests) there needs to be a more intimate connection between current scientific knowledge (and I'm not talking about the kind of scientists that are Cargill/Monsanto employees here) and politicians. The advantages given to big agribusiness must stop, so that sustainable farmers can begin to work on a level playing field. The Farm Bill currently being reworked plays a huge role in this.
We have grown to look upon our land and natural resources as stats in a ledger - commodities - and ourselves as being above natural laws. Competitive forces encourage us to just take what we need, without thought of giving back, and leave the results for 'tomorrow'. Unfortunately for us, tomorrow has arrived, and it's only taken fifty years of 'green revolution'. For those that want a little more info on 'dirt', and here for biofuels.
Biofuels, and the continued 'economic restructuring' of developing nations by the IMF and World Bank to put them on the same industrialised agricultural path that has already proved a failure for the North, are a case of persevering in the face of impossible odds. We need more people to understand how soil and water function. There is a better way.
Nature will heal itself eventually - but how many of us will be around to see it happen?