Band 8+: The pie chart below shows the main reasons why agricultural land become lesson productive. The table shows how these causes affected three regions of the world during the 1990s.

The pie chart compares the primary causes of degraded farming land, while the table gives information about the effects of these factors on North America, Europe, and Oceania in the 1990s.

It is clear that there are three main factors for farmland degradation, and over-grazing is the major one. We can also see that Europe had a far higher percentage of unproductive land compared to the other two regions in this time period.

According to the pie chart, over-grazing constitutes the biggest proportion for land degradation, at just over a third. Followed by deforestation and over-cultivation, each accounts for 30% and 28% respectively. It is notable that these three principal causes make up in total a massive 93% of all the causes of land degeneration.

Looking at the table, we can see that Europe was the most affected area, with almost a quarter of its surface had been degraded. Only a small proportion of North America’s total land became less productive at 5% and Oceania was slightly higher with a value of 13%.