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State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) Report, 2025

  • What is it?: The SOFA Report is a flagship FAO publication that examines key issues in agriculture, food systems, land use and production.
  • Key Findings:
    • Approximately 1.7 billion people live in regions where yields are falling due to human-induced land degradation.
    • Agricultural expansion remains the primary driver of deforestation globally, causing about 90 % of forest loss.
    • Cropland abandonment is significant- about 3.6 million hectares annually, largely because of degradation processes.
    • Yield gaps (difference between actual yields and potential) are particularly high in regions with dense population and degraded land- especially eastern & southern Asia. 
    • Degraded land undermines not just production, but rural livelihoods, ecosystem services and food security- making it a “silent crisis”.
  • Relevance for India:
    • India is highlighted as facing among the highest yield losses from land degradation.
    • Considering India’s goals like doubling farmers’ incomes, increasing cropping intensity, depth of irrigation and crop diversification, degradation-driven yield loss represents both a constraint and policy risk.
  • Recommendations
    • Sustainable Land Management (SLM): Practices such as conservation agriculture, agroforestry, soil organic matter enhancement, improved irrigation, crop rotation and cover-crops.
    • Incentive & regulatory mix: Design policy instruments like subsidies, credits and payments for ecosystem services tailored to farm size, agro-ecology, land-user type.
    • Focus on small-scale farms and vulnerable populations.
    • Strengthen data, monitoring and early warning by investing in mapping land-degradation hotspots, yield-gap analytics, remote sensing, farmer-level data.
    • Link productivity, sustainability and equity.
    • Cross-sectoral coordination between agriculture, forestry, water, environment and land-planning.
    • Rehabilitation & restoration: Restoration of degraded lands should become part of national agriculture/land-use strategy.