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by SiempreViernes
2710 days ago
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The statement was about the global reserve, so clearly these are all global averages. I don't see volume being very natural reporting unit as farming usually counts by area, so reporting a total volume just forces everyone to convert to length themselves. You want more details, read the Status of the World’s Soil Resources report: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5199e.pdf |
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The problem with that UN official quote is the area being talked about is poorly defined. Is it the global average for all farmland, or the global average of all land area (including Antartica?) The official doesn't clarify, but it matters because if it's the later that number is obviously being suppressed by regions that lack topsoil and were never considered arable in the first place. How long does it take the sand dunes of Gobi desert to create a centimeter of top soil? And I'm sure permafrost regions create new topsoil at an absolute snails pace if at all (although global warming might change this!) It seems obvious that regions like this will make that global average number seem a lot more dire than the situation actually is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm confident that topsoil erosion is a real problem that needs to be addressed. But I think that number; without the official providing any clarification, justification or context for it; qualifies as alarmism. It's obviously not going to take farmers 1,000 years to regenerate three centimeters of top soil on their fields.