Agriculture practices to reduce the soil erosion

Every spring, the 20 million inhabitants of Beijing, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, brace themselves for the sandstorms. Plumes of sand particles are swept up by strong winds in the Gobi Desert, which extends across the Chinese and Mongolian border, and descend on villages and cities thousands of kilometres away, filling the air with dust and reducing visibility like thick smog.

But it's not only China where urban and rural communities feel the impact of the advancing desert − in many regions of the world, desertification is threatening the livelihoods of millions of farmers. Drylands, which cover over 40% of the Earth's surface and account for 44% of all the word's cultivated area (source:UN DP Drylands Development Centre), are most at risk of desertification, as vegetation and soil moisture is lost and the land becomes more like a desert. But fertile soils are also vulnerable to desertification because of increasing deforestation and climatic changes that lead to more droughts and the exhaustion of water resources.

Poor farming practices can also leave soils depleted and exposed to soil erosion. Already, some 40% of the world's farm land is seriously degraded and millions of hectares of farm land become infertile globally each year as a result of soil erosion. Much of this soil is lost as a result of traditional tillage used for weed control. By breaking up and turning the soil, tillage leaves it more vulnerable to erosion and the soil is more easily washed off the fields by heavy rain. Soil conservation is one step that growers can take to reduce soil erosion and help to combat desertification.

Changing practices to prevent soil erosion

Syngenta is supporting farmers to conserve soil by combining good agricultural practices with safe and effective product use, to ensure existing farmland is used more sustainably. Farmers can help prevent soil erosion, for example, by rotating crops and growing plants on field margins. They can also avoid unnecessary mechanical preparation of the soil through conservation tillage (see sidebar).

In many ways, introducing a practice such as conservation tillage goes beyond simply training growers: tilling the land is a long-standing practice in many countries. Yield improvements are not immediate, because the soil's fertility can take many years to improve - so changing to conservation tillage is a long term approach.In Colombia, Syngenta provides training in agricultural best practice, including conservation tillage, to around 1,400 potato farmers each year. Through this support, farmers are learning to handle crop protection products more responsibly and produce 25 to 30% more food, while reducing soil loss by 67%.

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• Drainage
• Irrigation
• Stormwater