The State of Food and Agriculture 2025

Core messages

  1. 1 Land is a finite, essential, non-substitutable resource that underpins food security, livelihoods, biodiversity, and mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Yet, land degradation – driven by intensifying pressures – is now a pervasive and silent global challenge, eroding productivity and ecosystem health in countries of all income levels.
  2. 2 Land degradation – driven by human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing and unsustainable farming – refers to a persistent decline in land’s ability to sustain ecosystem functions and services. Its impacts range from subtle productivity losses to complete agricultural abandonment – reinforcing the urgent need for sustainable land management or restoration.
  3. 3 Around 1.7 billion people live in areas experiencing sizeable degradation-induced crop yield losses. Middle-income countries are the most affected, accounting for nearly 1 billion people. In high-income countries, intensive input use sustains yields but masks degradation and increases environmental harm.
  4. 4 Farm size strongly influences land management and food production strategies, as well as farmers’ ability to address land degradation. Of the world’s 570 million farms, 85 percent are smaller than 2 hectares (ha) and cultivate just 9 percent of farmland, while the 0.1 percent of farms over 1 000 ha control nearly 50 percent. Medium-sized farms – those between 2 ha and 50 ha – play a particularly important role in Africa and Asia, where they manage about half of all agricultural land.
  5. 5 The vast diversity in farm size underscores the need for scale-sensitive approaches to land degradation, food security and sustainability. Smallholder farmers working under resource constraints and on marginal lands require targeted support to sustainably intensify production.
  6. 6 Closing yield gaps, especially in socioeconomically vulnerable hotspots in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, without further degrading land, depends on access to appropriate technologies and extension services, secure tenure, and inclusive financing, alongside enabling environments that break unsustainable patterns.
  7. 7 Tackling land degradation at scale hinges on engaging large commercial farms, whose management decisions shape most of the world’s agricultural land. Effective policies, environmental compliance and incentive schemes that reward ecosystem stewardship are essential to align productivity goals with long-term sustainability.
  8. 8 The viability of farms of all sizes is central to ensuring food security. Medium and large farms produce, respectively, 26 percent and 58 percent of the kilocalories provided by crops globally; they play a key role in global trade and supply chains. On the other hand, smallholders, while producing just 16 percent globally, are vital in low- and lower-middle-income countries, where they account for about 60 percent.
  9. 9 Restoration strategies must be tailored to the severity and context of land degradation. Severely degraded areas may require transformative interventions, while land still in production can benefit from improved management practices.
  10. 10 Agri-environmental policies aimed at improving land use and management are expanding globally, but their adoption remains uneven. While high-income countries have implemented a wide range of regulatory and incentive-based approaches, low-income countries face constraints in deploying such measures; this highlights disparities in policy priorities, institutional capacity and access to resources.
  11. 11 Regulatory measures consistently improve land conditions across all land cover types; on the other hand, agri-environmental payments are particularly effective on forest lands and croplands – but they require funding. A combination of both approaches generates the greatest potential to align private incentives with public benefits for reversing land degradation.
  12. 12 Land degradation is neither inevitable nor irreversible. Strategic investments in people, institutions and land-friendly practices can transform agriculture from a driver of degradation to a source of restoration, strengthening agrifood systems and safeguarding the natural foundations of human well-being.
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