About 85 percent of the world's agricultural land contains areas degraded by erosion, salinization, compaction, nutrient depletion, biological degradation, or pollution over the last 50 years.

• Study reveals that environmental damage threatens future world food production. Using analysis of satellite-derived data, digital maps, and new ways of mapping global agriculture, the Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems (PAGE): Agroecosystems is the first comprehensive audit of the world agriculture’s ability to provide sufficient food, goods and services that are vital for sustaining human life.

• Food production has more than kept pace with global population growth. On average, food supplies are 24 percent higher per person than in 1961, and real prices are 40 percent lower.

• However, about 85 percent of the world's agricultural land contains areas degraded by erosion, salinization, compaction, nutrient depletion, biological degradation, or pollution over the last 50 years. About 34 percent of all agricultural land contains areas only lightly degraded; 43 percent contains moderately degraded areas; and 9 percent contains strongly or extremely degraded areas. The extent of agricultural soil degradation raises questions about the long-term capacity of agroecosystems to produce food.

• Agroecosystems cover more than a quarter of the global land area, but almost three-quarters of the land has poor soil fertility and about half has steep terrain.

• While the global expansion of agricultural area has been modest in recent decades, intensification has been rapid, as irrigated area increased and fallow time decreased to produce more output per hectare.

• Agriculture faces an enormous challenge to meet the food needs of an additional 1.7 billion people over the next 20 years.

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