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The dramatic rise in human population in this
century, coupled with over-consumption and inadequate
resource management, threatens the quality of life worldwide:
- World population will double by 2025;
nine-tenths of these people will be born in developing
countries.
- More than half the world's population
is concentrated on 5% of the land; nearly 90% live
on less than one-fifth of the land.
- About one billion people, one sixth
of the world's population, live in arid or semi-arid
lands, of whom just two-thirds practice farming.
- 90% of world food aid is directed
to populations in unproductive arid zones.
- Since 1970, food production per capita
has declined by at least 20% in Africa and parts of
Asia due to desertification and mismanagement of fresh
water.
- About 800 million people are chronically
undernourished because of poverty, insufficient production,
inequitable food access and political turmoil.
- Each year, an area the size of the
state of Kansas is impoverished due to encroaching
deserts.
- 80 of the 100 countries experiencing increased desertification are
developing countries
 In
the coming decades, rising consumer
demands and decreased water resources will create huge
food gaps in the poorest countries. Unpredictable geographical
and seasonal water distribution is a major factor in
future food stock calculations. There is a critical international
need, therefore, for improved land, water and agricultural
management to increase yield and cultivable areas.
40% of global land surface is dry land,
while 90% of Israel is dry land. Yet Israel is the only
country in the world where the desert is receding due
to innovative research and state-of-the-art management
and development programs. Israeli expertise, however,
remains largely restrained due to political boycott and
myopic strategies of countries with expanding desertification
areas.
Groups have approached the Negev Foundation
from Africa, China, India, the Middle East and the United
States interested in adopting Israeli arid land technology.
Egypt and Morocco have already initiated their own brackish
water agricultural projects with the assistance of the
Ramat Negev Desert AgroResearch Center and the Institute
for Applied Research at Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev. Delegations from other countries have visited
these institutions as well.
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