Key Facts on Agriculture and Land Use Issues

• Each year, the world population increases by more than 90 million, while the amount of topsoil decreases by more than 20 billion tons.
  
  
• It is estimated that by the year 2050, global demand for food will be three times what it is today.
  
  
• More than 2.5 billion kilos of pesticides are used annually throughout the world, with developing countries accounting for 15 per cent of global pesticide use. These countries also account for about 375,000 cases-or over half the world's total-of accidental poisoning from pesticides every year.
  
  
• Many of the pesticides exported to developing countries, such as DDT, chlordane and heptachlor, have been banned in their country of manufacture for health and environmental reasons.
  
  
• Every year, soil erosion robs Ethiopia of 1.5 million tons of grain, equivalent to all the food relief shipped into the country during the famine in 1985.
  
  
• Six billion tons of valuable soil are lost in India every year. The former Soviet republics of eastern Europe and central Asia lose two and a half billion tons.
  
  
• During Africa's drought of 1984-1985, 10 million farmers became environmental refugees as a direct result of land degradation.
  
  
• On a global basis, average yields per hectare of wheat, rice and maize have climbed steadily since 1961. However, this increase probably will not be able to keep up with population growth.
  
  
• Each year, the towns and cities in developing countries, which are already bulging at the seams, must absorb more than 80 million more people. Many of these people migrate to cities because of environmental degradation in their homelands.
  
  

All photos, text and illustrations Copyright ©1996 The United Nations Environment Programme.