Drivers for global agricultural land use change: The nexus of diet, population, yield and bioenergy

Abstract

The nexus of population growth and changing diets has increased the demands placed on agriculture to supply food for human consumption, animal feed and fuel. Rising incomes lead to dietary changes, from staple crops, towards commodities with greater land requirements, e.g. meat and dairy products. Despite yield improvements partially offsetting increases in demand, agricultural land has still been expanding, causing potential harm to ecosystems, e.g. through deforestation. We use country-level panel data (1961-2011) to allocate the land areas used to produce food for human consumption, waste and biofuels, and to attribute the food production area changes to diet, population and yields drivers. The results show that the production of animal products dominates agricultural land use and land use change over the 50-year period, accounting for 65% of land use change. The rate of extensification of animal production was found to have reduced more recently, principally due to the smaller effect of population growth. The area used for bioenergy was shown to be relatively small, but formed a substantial contribution (36%) to net agricultural expansion in the most recent period. Nevertheless, in comparison to dietary shifts in animal products, bioenergy accounted for less than a tenth of the increase in demand for agricultural land. Population expansion has been the largest driver for agricultural land use change, but dietary changes are a significant and growing driver. China was a notable exception, where dietary transitions dominate food consumption changes, due to rapidly rising incomes. This suggests that future dietary changes will become the principal driver for land use change, pointing to the potential need for demand-side measures to regulate agricultural expansion.

Reducing meat consumption in developed and transition countries to counter climate change and biodiversity loss: a review of influence factors

“…However, small-scale agriculture and extensive husbandry on pastures is generally less harmful or even beneficial for biodiversity (FAO 2006;Machovina et al 2015). In total, 65 % of the expansion in land use between 1960 and 2011 is due to increased production of animal products (Alexander et al 2015). Westhoek et al (2011) estimate that animal husbandry accounts for roughly 30 % of current global biodiversity loss, primarily as the result of changes in land use.…”

Impacts of climate mitigation strategies in the energy sector on global land use and carbon balance

“…This is done with the help of cF_BEtotal i,n (unitless), the per country fraction of bioenergy on total bioenergy production, as well as yieldBEcr i,n , the country-specific yield of bioenergy (yieldBEcr i,n , EJ Mha −1 ). FAOSTAT commodity balance sheets, "other uses" for crops cereals total, vegetable oils, and sugar crops (Mt) and production and production area were used to derive initial bioenergy area and yields (Alexander et al, 2015;FAOSTAT, 2015). The category "other uses" covers bioenergy, as well as materials and stimulants.…”

Cultivated Land Use Benefits Under State and Collective Agrarian Property Regimes in China

“…In the last few decades, the interaction between agrarian regimes and cultivated land use has been investigated in a variety of ways by various authors. Constructing theoretical frameworks (e.g., Food and agriculture organization of the United nations, Global land project), which is the most common approach, has been proposed based on cultivated land use [48,49].…”