At the 2024 GFFA, the progress made regarding the commitments in this communiqué will be discussed

Final communique 2022 ( excerpt) .

13. We recall that, in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we committed to combat desertification, to restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and to strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world by 2030. In this context, we commend the work of the United Nations Convention to
Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and encourage Parties to take bold action at the UNCCD COP15 in Abidjan, Côte D’Ivoire, in May 2022. We will aim for a successful United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

14. We recognise that desertification, land degradation and drought represent massive threats to global food security, nutrition and sustainable food systems worldwide. To address these threats and restore degraded soils, we advocate for site-specific measures such as appropriate changes in soil and land management practices e.g. through improving longterm tenure security, restoring productive and biodiverse landscapes, and promoting the cultivation of legumes among others, where appropriate. We welcome in this context measures such as the African Union’s Great Green Wall of Africa, which can have an important impact for the political stabilisation and social stability of the region. We underline
that restoring degraded land and soil requires long-term commitments


Every year, the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) discusses current topics and issues with global outreach.
The 2022 GFFA addressed the issue “Sustainable Land Use: Food Security Starts with the Soil” and thus dealt with one of the most important challenges for the global food situation which requires worldwide cooperation.

More than 90 percent of global food production depends on soil. It provides habitats for soil organisms and is the most important terrestrial carbon sink on earth. However, the quality of soils is increasingly deteriorating and fertile land is becoming scarcer.

This development must be halted by using land resources sustainably and preserving existing agricultural land. Farmers must also be granted long-term and secure access to agricultural land through ownership, tenancy and use rights in order to enable them to use land sustainably. Only in doing so will we be able to feed the growing world population, stop climate change, and reduce the loss of biodiversity. There is an urgent need for the international community to develop and implement viable and practical solutions.

The 2022 GFFA was to provide key impetus to this end and promote international exchange. The four core questions were:

How can we improve soil protection?
How can we restore degraded soils?
How can we make the use of finite land resources more sustainable?
How can farmers worldwide get fair access to land?
You can find further information on the subject in the Backgroundpaper.