ULAANBAATAR/ROME - Soil degradation is continuing to worsen in many parts of the world, while proven practices to protect and restore soils are still not being adopted at the pace and scale required, according to a major new global assessment launched today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
The Status of the World's Soil Resources 2026 report, alongside new guidance developed jointly with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), was presented at the seventeenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD (COP17). Together, the two publications combine new evidence on the state of the world's soils with practical guidance to accelerate action and help countries avoid, reduce and reverse agricultural land and soil degradation.
The report finds that proven sustainable soil management practices are still not being adopted at the pace and scale required. More than half of the regional and subregional assessments reviewed indicate low or very low adoption. 58 percent report a deteriorating trend since 2015, and only around 10 percent report improvement.
The report complements the global assessment first published in 2015 by FAO through the Global Soil Partnership and with scientific guidance from the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils. It draws on scientific literature published between 2015 and 2025 and extensive expertise from 75 countries.
Proven practices, including reduced tillage, integrated nutrient management, crop diversification, cover crops, organic amendments and agroforestry, can mitigate soil threats while sustaining or improving agricultural productivity. The challenge is to scale up their adoption at the required pace.
"We have much better evidence today about the pressures facing the world's soils - and about the practices that can protect and restore them. But this report makes clear that proven solutions are still not being adopted at the pace and scale required. The priority now is to give countries, farmers and other land users the knowledge, capacity and incentives they need to put those solutions into practice," said FAO Deputy Director-General Beth Bechdol.
Mounting pressures and interconnected threats
Soils underpin food security, producing more than 95 percent of the food we eat. They also store and filter water, regulate the climate, support biodiversity and sustain livelihoods.
Since 2015, the global population has grown by 800 million people, while the harvested area of major crops expanded by 80 million hectares. Urbanization, unsustainable agricultural practices, industrial activities, conflicts and pollution can all contribute to land degradation and the decline of soil functions.
Soil erosion emerges as the most severe and interconnected threat to soil health. Across the seven regions assessed, 81 percent of assessments judge erosion management to be poor or very poor, while 65 percent report a deteriorating trend since 2015.
Nutrient management challenges also vary by region: some areas face surpluses from excessive inputs, while others face nutrient depletion that constrains agricultural productivity and food security, underscoring the need for locally adapted approaches.
Five priorities for accelerating progress
The report calls for coordinated and sustained action at all levels, guided by five priorities:
1. strengthening soil governance and legal frameworks.
2. promoting education, capacity development and knowledge exchange.
3. improving soil monitoring through harmonized data, indicators and assessment methods.
4. strengthening incentives for the adoption of sustainable soil management.
5. fostering inclusive, multidisciplinary and multistakeholder decision-making.
The report urges decision-makers to recognize healthy soils as strategic assets and translate existing knowledge into action.
Practical guidance for agricultural land and soil
The second publication launched today, Living Soils, Productive Lands, Resilient Landscapes - Guidance on Avoiding, Reducing and Reversing Agricultural Land and Soil Degradation, was developed jointly by FAO and UNCCD. It places agricultural land at the centre of countries' efforts to achieve land degradation neutrality and addresses a long-standing gap: agricultural landscapes have often remained underrepresented despite accounting for the majority of human-induced land degradation.
The Guidance promotes a shift from isolated restoration interventions towards integrated management of productive landscapes, prioritizing the avoidance of degradation wherever possible, reducing ongoing pressures, and restoring land and soils where degradation has already occurred.
It also calls for stronger integration of agricultural land and soil considerations into national development planning, land degradation neutrality targets, climate strategies, biodiversity frameworks and agrifood system transformation processes.
A digital companion hosted within FAO's Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook Knowledge Base provides access to tools, case studies, methodologies and practical examples.
