Yet nearly 1 billion people do not have enough food to eat. And more than 1 billion lack access to enough safe water. Most of the world’s billion poor people are living directly off degrading land. How can we eliminate poverty without addressing the source of people’s low income; land and its declining productivity? Our food, water, homes and incomes are built on the land. The food, water and ecosystem services that we enjoy are closely linked to the health and productivity of the land. We are all part of a fragile ecosystem that can be compared to the structure of a house. Take away the foundation of the ecosystem, healthy soil, and you compromise the entire structure. Soil is providing the nutrients plants need for growth and animals need for food. Land is the natural storage of our fresh water resources. And land plays an important role in regulating the earth’s temperature and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Its degradation threatens this foundation. Today, more than half of all agricultural land is degraded. Every ten years, the productivity of an area the size of South Africa is lost through desertification and drought alone. This is an area that could produce 200 million tons of grain.