Agricultural Research, Productivity, and Food Prices in the Long Run

Alston, Julian M.; Beddow, Jason M.; Pardey, Philip G.

doi:10.1126/science.1170451

Cited by 352 publications

(225 citation statements)

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“…The first argues that insurmountable biophysical limits are constraining yield growth 9 , a situation that might be compounded by climate change 15 , and this outcome is reflected at the lower-bound of our yield projections. The second hypothesis argues that yields are well within biophysical limits, but that regulatory and market conditions and declines in research and development have reduced incentives to invest in yield growth [9][10][11] . These factors are controllable so under the second hypothesis there is significant scope for future yield growth.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…We define yields as the annual tonnage of production per hectare for crops and the feed conversion ratio (feed consumed per kilogram of production) for livestock. Future yields could vary across a wide range, driven by a number of biophysical, technical and socioeconomic factors [8][9][10][11] . We assessed the likely bounds of this range based on an assessment of technical potential and reflect this in our projections, which span yield declines through to sustained long-term growth averaging 1.3% per annum across all commodities 3 (Table 1; Supplementary Fig.…”

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The potential for land sparing to offset greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture

et al. 2016

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Greenhouse gas emissions from global agriculture are increasing at around 1% perannum, yet substantial cuts in emissions are needed across all sectors 1 . The challenge of reducing agricultural emissions is particularly acute, because the reductions achievable by changing farming practices are limited 2,3 and are hampered by rapidly rising food demand 4,5 . Here we assess the technical mitigation potential offered by land sparingincreasing agricultural yields, reducing farmland area and actively restoring natural habitats on the land spared 6 . Restored habitats can sequester carbon and can offset emissions from agriculture. Using the United Kingdom as an example, we estimate net emissions in 2050 under a range of future agricultural scenarios. We find that a landsparing strategy has the technical potential to achieve significant reductions in net emissions from agriculture and land-use change. Coupling land sparing with demandside strategies to reduce meat consumption and food waste can further increase the technical mitigation potential, however economic and implementation considerations might limit the degree to which this technical potential could be realised in practice.We projected the mitigation potential of land sparing in the United Kingdom with reference to its binding commitment to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 (relative to 1990 levels) 7 . We began by identifying a technically plausible range in the future yields of all major crop and livestock commodities produced in the UK, based on historic trends and future potential. We define yields as the annual tonnage of production per hectare for crops and the feed conversion ratio (feed consumed per kilogram of production) for livestock. Future yields could vary across a wide range, driven by a number of biophysical, technical and socioeconomic factors [8][9][10][11] . We assessed the likely bounds of this range based on an assessment of technical potential and reflect this in our projections, which span yield declines through to sustained long-term growth averaging 1.3% per annum across all commodities 3 (Table 1; Supplementary Fig. 1; Supplementary Discussion). For the avoidance of doubt, we do not equate our lower yielding scenarios with 'land sharing'.We next projected emissions attributable to UK agricultural production out to 2050, quantifying all sources of emissions that would be affected by a land-sparing strategy. We therefore quantified not only emissions reported under 'Agriculture' in the UK's greenhouse gas inventory 12 , but also emissions related to agriculture but reported in other sectors (e.g. farm energy use, agro-chemical production and land-use change), and emissions arising overseas due to imported feed for livestock (see Supplementary Table 2 for all emissions sources quantified). Our projections assumed that agricultural production increases from present levels in proportion to projected demand growth (Supplementary Table 1). In certain scenarios, projected UK farming capacity does not keep pace with demand growth. In such cases ...

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The potential for land sparing to offset greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture

et al. 2016

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“…The number of crop species consumed globally over the past fifty years has narrowed (Khoury et al 2014), which is the other side of the coin of the plant breeding success of the past. While food production has obviously increased overall, some have raised concerns that the world's reliance on a smaller number of food crops may make global food security more susceptible to local interruptions in production (Alston et al 2009;Ray et al 2013). Moreover, for at least some populations, a shift from traditional to Western diets has decreased their nutritional intake (Graham et al 2007;Kennedy et al 2005;Ruel 2003).…”

Section: Orphan Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genomic breeding for food, environment and livelihoods

2015

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Land use management is a central challenge for the 21st century with unprecedented and competing demands to produce food, feed/fodder, fibre, fuel, and essential ecosystem services which sustain life. Global change requires rapid adaptation in current and emerging crops as well as in the foundation species of natural ecosystems. Revolutions in genomics and high throughput experimentation are transforming breeding so that adaptive traits in new environments can be predicted and selected more directly from germplasm collections of crops and wild species. This genomic breeding is now feasible in almost any species and has promise to help meet the need to feed and nourish over 9 billion people by 2050. Genomic techniques can accelerate our response to food security challenges of yield, quality and resilience and also address environmental security challenges. To achieve its potential there will need to be widespread and ongoing investments in the human capital to promote genomic breeding.

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“…Over the past 50 years, most food commodity prices have steadily trended down, suggesting that productivity growth has outpaced demand growth (Alston et al, 2009). In recent years, however, many food commodity prices have increased dramatically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling supply and demand shifts: the impacts on world salmon price

Brækkan

2014

Applied Economics

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To understand price changes one must determine the relative impact of supply and demand shifts on price. Conditional on pre-determined supply and demand elasticities, we retrieve yearly shifts in regional supply and demand. The relative impact on price from each supply and demand shift is determined through an Equilibrium Displacement Model (EDM). This procedure is applied on a yearly basis for the world salmon market in the period from 2002 to 2011. The results indicate a large variation in demand and supply growth both over time and between regions. While average annual price impacts from supply or demand shifts from most regions were not statistically significant, price impacts from supply or demand shifts for specific periods are detected in all but one region. This indicates the use of smooth trend indicators is likely to be inappropriate for measuring supply and demand shifts and their impacts on price.The procedure presented in this paper can be a useful instrument for determining the relative impacts of supply and demand shifts on price in any market with unstable price behaviour.

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Agricultural Research, Productivity, and Food Prices in the Long Run

Abstract: A reinvestment in agricultural R&D is critical to ensuring sufficient food for the world in the coming decades.

Cited by 352 publications

References 3 publications

The potential for land sparing to offset greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture

The potential for land sparing to offset greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture

Genomic breeding for food, environment and livelihoods

Disentangling supply and demand shifts: the impacts on world salmon price

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