The pie chart shows three reasons along with a category of unlisted causes for the decline in the quality of agricultural land, and the table gives information on three regions suffering from the causes in the 1990s. The data suggests that across the globe, agricultural lands were degraded most because of overgrazing, with deforestation and over-cultivation following closely. Moreover, the lands in Europe suffered the most among the three listed regions, whereas North America was the least impacted.
Excessive grazing accounts for 35% of the degradation, followed by a 5% smaller forest loss rate. This was followed by over-farming as the third most influential factor, at 28%. By contrast, only 7% of the destruction was attributed to other factors.
Concerning the regions, the degree of degradation varies. There was a significant loss of land in Europe, 23%, the most notable of all, primarily due to deforestation (9.8%). Over-cultivation and over-grazing, in descending order, were responsible for 3% to 5% less destructive effect on agriculture. Oceania comes in second with 13% total soil damage. In these islands in the South Pacific, which include Australia and New Zealand, excess grazing of animals accounted for a massive 11.3% of the loss, with other factors being either zero or negligible. Comparatively, the damage in North America was much smaller (5%), with well over half of it attributed to overdoing in cultivation and the remaining factors constituting insignificant amounts.
