Review
Factors influencing dryland agricultural productivity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104489Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Globally drylands have increase from 41% to 45.4%.

  • Land degradation poses threats to people in lower income countries who often have armed conflicts and diseases.

  • Farmers in the drylands are poorly supported by institutions that are supposed to help them in agriculture.

  • Drylands food security challenges and problems can be solved by seeking solutions through research and innovation.crease food security by research and innovation.

Abstract

Agriculture is one of the most important sectors in the world. It provides food for the growing world populations while also creating employment opportunities. This sector, however, is greatly threatened by climate change, increased water scarcity, droughts, land degradation and poor management of resources. The state of drylands in the world raises great concern given that it largely affects third world countries particularly subsistence farmers. This raises questions with regards to the extent of drylands and the progression of land degradation and water availability. This article presents current efforts to track development of land degradation and developing systems that improve agricultural productivity in drylands. Our review finds that given the climatic and environmental threats to agricultural productivity suitable solutions such as improved research and resource management can lead to increased production for food security and even commercialization. Therefore, it is imperative to allow access to advanced technology to subsistence farmers.

Introduction

Indigenous desert peoples of the world make 35% of the world population and live in the drylands. Providing food and feed for the household in the arid to semi-arid agroecologies is indeed a tall order. The challenges associated with residing in drylands are largely brought on by low rainfall and a resultant reduction in arable land for crop cultivation (Middleton and Sternberg, 2013). Previously, global estimations of terrestrial lands considered drylands were close to 41% (Prăvălie, 2016) however, that number has since increased to 45.4% (Prăvălie et al., 2019). Africa in particular has the highest proportion of drylands covering close to 75% of its land (Prăvălie, 2016). The increase in arid and semi-arid areas poses a great problem to people in those areas (Feng and Fu, 2013; Huang et al., 2016).

The greatest concerns in regards to drylands and land degradation are agricultural productivity and water availability. As such, economies of drylands are also affected. As global populations increase, the demand on agricultural productivity of drylands will also increase. Therefore, given the previous trends in the global increase in percentage of drylands, it is essential to fully assess the current state of drylands. This review will highlight some of the factors that impact food security in dryland areas of the world, examine the current state of drylands and future implications on agriculture.

Section snippets

Land degradation

Detrimental anthropogenic activities and some natural processes result in land degradation. This leads to a reduction in the functional abilities of those particular areas negatively affecting agricultural productivity and other natural processes in those environments (Nijbroek et al., 2018). As such land degradation is symbolized by a continuous loss in biological activity and eventual economic loss. This is often due to destructive human activity (Lanfredi et al., 2015) and is worsened by

Loss of biodiversity

Grasslands offer a wide variety of biodiversity by supporting the ecosystem (Dlamini et al., 2014). Dryland agriculture faces numerous challenges with impending land degradation. Loss of biodiversity is an obvious consequence (Akhtar-Schuster et al., 2017; Pacheco et al., 2018). Reduced soil organic carbon and nitrogen content are consequences of land degradation which lead to reduced soil fertility over time. As soil fertility decreases, the amount of vegetation and eventually biodiversity is

Water scarcity

As the state of land degradation increases, an already existing problem presents itself as only worsening-water scarcity. Water availability is one of the leading indications of land degradation (Pacheco et al., 2018; Prăvălie, 2016). Water availability is threatened by the reduction of surface and ground water due to diminishing biomass (Akhtar-Schuster et al., 2017). This results in less water available for both domestic and agricultural use. In addition, water scarcity also considers the

Climatic variability

Variations in climates over long periods of time often affect agricultural, biological and human systems and with increasing global temperatures, it is estimated that variability in climate and weather will also increase (Thornton et al., 2014). Evidence to climatic variability has been shown by longer droughts or dry seasons and also more intense rainfall periods (Reyer et al., 2013). East Africa is an example of ongoing climatic events. The progression of increased temperatures, droughts and

Frequent droughts

A drought is defined as an environmental event characterized by extended periods of low rainfall as opposed to the usual, greatly affecting the stability of plant life resulting in a domino effect affecting agriculture and water availability (Tardieu et al., 2018). Drought types include inter-seasonal dry spells which may be mitigated by effective water management and inter-annual droughts which last longer and often lead to reduced crop production (Falkenmark, 2013). Frequent periods of

Socio-economic factors

The devastating effects on agricultural production, water availability and the economy has been linked to displacement of populations. People are known to migrate from their villages in search of better climates and lands as in Burkina Faso around 1980 (Doso Jnr, 2014). Countries or regions that rely on the agricultural productive abilities of other countries are also greatly affected. Periods of poor agricultural production leave millions of dependent people at risk of hunger and food

Poor market linkages

Agricultural productivity in Africa is an important sector as it drives development and improves food security. Furthermore, positive productivity reduces unemployment and poverty contributing 45–50% to the total gross domestic product (GDP) (Sisay, 2018). Dryland agriculture, however, is threatened by climate change and water scarcity. An additional problem arises with inadequate markets grossly affecting profitability within the sector (Gahukar, 2011; Nagaraj, 2014). Among rural subsistence

Weak institutions and lack of partnerships

Farmers in the dryland are often let down by lack of adequate support from institutions that are supposed to help them in agriculture. Research institutions are poorly funded and resourced. For example, in many instances, farmers plant poor quality of seeds because the seed production system is also weak. Seed aid is often given in times of crises with aim of improving short term crop production and reducing future agricultural stress. Failure to evaluate the suitability of cropping soils and

Limited access to modern agricultural technology

The majority of the farmers in drylands use old farming methods and this has led to failure to cope with increasing populations for food security (O'Callaghan, 2016). The farming methods can only produce little amounts of food. Conservation agriculture may help increase crop production while also improving profitability and reducing soil degradation. This modern system involves minimum tillage, soil cover and crop rotation (Corbeels et al., 2014). Some methods are not widely used nor accepted

Concluding remarks

Several factors that influenced agricultural productivity in dryland have been carefully summarized in the narrative above. Some of the factors are interlinked. The situation around agricultural production in drylands is dire and this can easily dishearten farmers and other role players. In addition, the threats to agricultural productivity are increasing as the state of climate change worsen. However, the tough times call for tough responses that seek solutions outside the usual approaches.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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      The extent of these anthropogenic imbalances is alarming, both at present, when over 2 billion people live in global drylands, and especially for the decades to come, when the human population may increase in these restrictive environments by 40–50% by 2050 (Stavi et al., 2021). This expected demographic growth, coupled with the environmental degradation that will most likely worsen in the coming years, will amplify socio-economic issues such as poverty, land abandonment, unemployment, armed conflicts and food insecurity, already present in many drylands of the world (Hoover et al., 2020; Chimwamurombe and Mataranyika, 2021; Stavi et al., 2021). Consequently, all these socio-economic and environmental disturbances will intensify by the end of the century, when more drier conditions are expected across the globe (Feng and Fu, 2013; Huang et al., 2016; Lin et al., 2018; Park et al., 2018; Lian et al., 2021).

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