Drought kills agricultural profit
Land degradation and desertification are causing huge reductions in
agricultural profits in the world’s poorest nations, according to a
report presented at the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification (UNCCD). The first assessment of its kind in more than
20 years calculates that Guatemala, for example, lost 24% of its
agricultural gross domestic product to environmental degradation. The
findings were presented at the UNCCD’s second scientific conference, on 9
April in Bonn, Germany. Nearly 3.7 million people in East Africa still
require food assistance after droughts in Kenya (pictured) and other
nations wiped out crops in 2011, the UNCCD says. “Desertification, land
degradation and drought are key constraints to building social and
environmental resilience, achieving global food security and delivering
meaningful poverty reduction,” said UNCCD executive secretary Luc
Gnacadja at the meeting.
