Worldwide, an estimated 34 million hectares of irrigated farmland are affected by high salinity, representing 11 percent of the total irrigated land, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. If these lands were rehabilitated, they could effectively produce 20 percent of the global wheat production, which could generate an additional $42 billion of revenue a year, estimates Andrew Noble, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems and a soil scientist by background.
“When you look at the problem (of high salinity), it’s massive across Central Asia,” Noble says. “The options farmers have are either to abandon their land or invest heavily” in expensive drainage systems.
While licorice could be a low-cost land rehabilitation option in Central Asia, other salt-tolerant varieties of sorghum, millet and alfalfa might be appropriate in some of these ecological zones, Noble says.
By Jeff Smith
Related report: Remediation of Abandoned Saline Soils in Central Asia
This blog is part of the Agriculture and Ecosystems Blog’s month-long series on Restoring Landscapes.
