Better land, soil and water management key to feeding 10 billion people

Feeding a projected 10 billion people by 2050 will require bold and smarter choices in how the world manages its land, soil and water, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warns in a new flagship report.

The latest edition of The State of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture (SOLAW 2025) report, released on Monday, underscores that these essential resources are finite. Safeguarding them is critical to securing global food security now and in the decades to come.

Under the theme “The potential to produce more and better,” the report highlights the significant, often overlooked potential of land and water resources to support sustainable increases in food production. It presents strategies for producing more – and better – food for a growing population while ensuring the responsible and resilient management of land, soil, and water.

In 2024, an estimated 673 million people experienced hunger, and many regions continue to grapple with severe and recurrent food emergencies. These pressures will intensify as the global population approaches 9.7 billion by 2050, requiring agriculture to produce 50 percent more food, feed and fibre than in 2012, alongside 25 percent more freshwater.

The core challenge:  producing more with less

Over the past 60 years, global agricultural production tripled with only an 8 percent increase in agricultural land – but at high environmental and social costs.  Today, more than 60 percent of human-induced land degradation occurs on agricultural land, according to FAO data.

Expanding agricultural area is no longer viable, the report stresses.  For example, clearing forests or converting fragile ecosystems would undermine critical biodiversity and ecosystem functions that agriculture itself depends on.

Solutions exist – but action must be swift

SOLAW 2025 presents science-based recommendations for the sustainable use and management of land, soil, and water resources.

The report indicates that the world has the potential to feed up to 10.3 billion people by 2085, when the global population is expected to peak. However, achieving this depends on how food is produced — and at what environmental, social, and economic costs.

Future productivity gains must therefore come from smarter, not simply more, production. This means closing yield gaps (the difference between currently obtained and potentially attainable yield); diversifying into resilient crop varieties; and adopting locally-tailored, resource-efficient practices suited to specific land, soil, and water conditions.

Rainfed agriculture — relied on by millions of smallholder farmers — offers key opportunities. Productivity can rise significantly by scaling up conservation agriculture, drought-tolerant crops, and drought-resilient practices such as soil moisture conservation, crop diversification, and organic composting.  Such practices can strengthen food security for millions of smallholder farmers while enhancing soil health and on-farm biodiversity.

Integrated systems such as agroforestry, rotational grazing and forage improvement, as well as rice–fish farming, offer additional pathways to sustainable intensification.

The potential for substantial productivity gains is particularly strong in developing regions. In sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, rainfed crop yields currently reach just 24 percent of their attainable potential under appropriate management.

There is no single pathway and no one-size-fits-all solution, the report stresses. Sustainable solutions require coherent policies, strong governance, accessible data and technology, innovation, risk management, and sustainable financing and investment, as well as strengthened capacity across institutions and communities.

With the climate crisis reshaping where and how food can be grown, “the choices we make today for the management of land and water resources will determine how we meet current and future demands while protecting the world for generations to come,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu writes in the report’s Foreword.

Looking ahead

In 2026, the three Rio Conventions — the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — will hold major conferences. SOLAW 2025 provides solutions that cut across all three areas, providing a shared foundation for integrated, sustainable land, soil, and water management to build resilient agrifood systems.

Land, soil, and water solutions are key to food security, nutrition, human well-being, and global sustainability goals.