Standing at the edge of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, one witnesses a landscape that illustrates humanity’s ancient and complex relationship with land. Formed millions of years ago, the valley’s savannahs, forests, and lakes cradled early human civilization. Today, this relationship is fraying. Around Lake Naivasha, sprawling industrial flower farms – a $141 million export industry vital to Kenya’s economy – compete with local communities for scarce water resources. Nearby, small farmers trapped on degraded and unproductive lands face deepening poverty and ethnic conflict. Months of drought are punctuated by catastrophic, climate change-induced flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands of people in 2024.

This scene depicts one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today: the ‘global land squeeze.’ Agriculture has already consumed 40 percent of Earth’s land surface. Now, rising demand for food, fuel, and fiber directly competes with biodiversity and climate imperatives to protect 30 percent of land and waters and restore 30 percent of degraded ecosystems by 2030.

As competition over land intensifies, historical inequities deepen. The largest one percent of farms now control 70 percent of global farmland. ‘Green grabs’ for environmental projects, such as carbon offsetting or clean energy production, now represent 20 percent of all large-scale land acquisitions and are the biggest emerging threat to farmers and communities.

We Need a Systems Approach

The global land squeeze embodies a complex web of interconnected challenges that defy simple solutions. But traditional philanthropy often focuses on a singular goal decided by a board or a family – like increasing yields, conserving forests, or restoring degraded watersheds. Impact is often measured using single metrics that obscure the whole picture, such as greenhouse gas emissions reduced or trees planted.

Siloed thinking can create unintended consequences. For instance, improving farm yields may increase profitability, which can accelerate nearby deforestation. Forest protection can fail when farmers are not given alternatives, such as financing to restore and cultivate degraded lands. Well-intentioned policies can create perverse incentives. ‘Sustainable aviation fuel’ (SAF) mandates, for example, seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation industry. However, supplying 25 percent of estimated aviation fuel in 2050 with vegetable oil would require 40 percent of all the world’s cropland. Diverting valuable cropland away from food production will increase deforestation pressure (and associated emissions) in the tropics and negatively affect food security.

Read the full article about global land squeeze by Crystal Davis at Alliance Magazine.