Arab agricultural land is on the brink

Editorial Staff / 36 seconds
June 19, 2025
0
3 min read

Two people digging in arid soil, aerial view.

The post Arab agricultural land is on the brink appeared first on Green Prophet.

Saudi Arabia is home to desert truffles.

Truffle hunting in the deserts of Saudi Arabia

A new study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) paints a stark picture of agricultural land degradation, particularly in the Arab region. More than 46 million hectares—nearly two-thirds of all land suffering human-induced damage in the region—are now at risk. The findings, published in Agriculture (MDPI), stress the urgent need to restore degraded land to safeguard food supplies, especially where climate pressures are mounting.

The Arab Spring started because of the price of bread and the lack of water resources to grow food. The civil war in Syria began for the same reasons. As the Arab world gets drier, conflicts in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan will only get more intense.

Globally, an estimated 1.66 billion hectares of land have been degraded by human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, mismanaged irrigation, and heavy chemical use. Over 60 percent of that damage falls on croplands and pastures—the soils that feed 95 percent of the world’s population. If allowed to worsen, degradation could undercut entire agrifood systems and the communities that depend on them.

Across the Arab world, croplands face a perfect storm of stressors. Excessive fertilizers and pesticides erode soil ecology. Poor drainage and over-irrigation drive salinization, leaving fields crusted with salt. Rising temperatures, dwindling groundwater, and more frequent sand-and-dust storms—all amplified by climate change—compound the crisis. These are unmistakably human-driven pressures, and they are accelerating. Consider that Morocco lost half its wheat last year from drought. How many more migrants and climate refugees from the Middle East and North Africa can Europe accept? The solution is to help.

Less than 4 percent of degraded land in the Arab region is currently earmarked for restoration. FAO analysts calculate that rehabilitating 26 million hectares of worn-out cropland could trim yield gaps by as much as 50 percent for oil crops and lift cereals, roots, and tubers toward their full potential—a direct boost to local food security and rural incomes.

The study urges governments, farmers, investors, and researchers to adopt integrated soil, water, and land-management strategies designed to stop further degradation and rebuild fertility. Rather than relying on one-off projects, it recommends coordinated regional programs that share data, finance, and know-how—tailored to the diverse ecological zones from Morocco’s Atlantic coast to Iraq’s river valleys. Israel has water technologies from water companies such as Netafim to help rip irrigation deliver more drops per crop.

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