Changes in Agricultural Land Use as a Threat to Food Security

Al land use changes pose a most serious challenge to agricultural production, resulting in the loss of fertile soil and food security. The present study was conducted to investigate the challenges associated with fertile agricultural lands in Iran as an attempt to examine and identify the different aspects of the threats agricultural lands are faced with. As a second step, the laws and regulations governing land use change in different countries and in Iran were reviewed and the general policies related to the protection of agricultural lands were examined.  The review of land use laws in Iran showed that, despite their abundance, they have suffered from poor law enforcement as a result of both social and historical reasons as well as a public negligence of and non-adherence to the laws. Evaluations of temporal changes in the growth and development of metropolises as provincial centers revealed that they had greatly expanded beyond their original limits to annex fertile agricultural lands in the suburbs to these large cities. The five-year statistics of the requests submitted for land use change in each province also revealed landlords’ increasing demands submitted for land use change motivated by more profits out of their property, which result in loss of fertile soil, decreased agricultural production, and endangered food security.