Camel traders wait to take their meals at Pushkar Fair in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan November 8, 2013. 
 
 NEW DELHI About a quarter of India's land is turning to desert and degradation of agricultural areas is becoming a severe problem, the environment minister said, potentially threatening food security in the world's second most populous country. 
 
 India occupies just 2 percent of the world's territory but is home to 17 percent of its population, leading to over-use of land and excessive grazing. Along with changing rainfall patterns, these are the main causes of desertification. 
 
 "Land is becoming barren, degradation is happening," said Prakash Javadekar, minister for environment, forests and climate change. "A lot of areas are on the verge of becoming deserts but it can be stopped." 
 
 Land degradation - largely defined as loss of productivity - is estimated at 105 million hectares, constituting 32 percent of the total land. 
 
 According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) that prepared a report on desertification in 2007, about 69 percent of land in the country is dry, making it vulnerable to water and wind erosion, salinization and water logging. 
 
 Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are the among the most arid. These are some of the cotton and rapeseed growing states of India. 
 
 (Reporting by Krishna N Das and Shyamantha Asokan; Editing by Jeremy Laurence) 

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– Nearly a quarter of India's land is turning to desert thanks to over-use of land, heavy grazing, and changing rainfall patterns, says the country's environment minister. He warns "land is becoming barren," and notes that could threaten food security in a country that houses 17% of the world's population on just 2% of its land, Reuters reports. Forbes points out 25% desertification is a much higher figure than the one an Indian scientific council put forth in 2007. At the time, it said it said roughly 10% of the country's land would become unusable desert by 2050, and by its calculations, India wouldn't hit the 25% threshold for at least a century. At this point, land degradation—which indicates a loss of productivity —is believed to be affecting 32% of the country's land.