Meeting future food demand with current agricultural resources

Davis, Kyle Frankel; Gephart, Jessica A.; Emery, Kyle A.; Leach, Allison M.; Galloway, James N.; D’Odorico, Paolo

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.05.004

Cited by 314 publications

(209 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…This result is inconsistent with those of previous studies [31,34,75], which concluded that a shift towards a higher consumption of protein-rich food is likely to cause an increase in EF. This difference is likely to be because we did not include carbon, wastes, and other factors in the EF calculation, leading to underestimation of EF.…”

Section: Discussion Of the Resultscontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…This indicates that humanity has already overshot the global BC and lives unsustainably by depleting stocks of natural capital. EF accounting has been used to support decision making in recent years, since some scholars have pointed out that EF analysis can provide useful information or ecological implications for policy makers who must integrate food security with ecological implications [30,31]. However, Van den Bergh and Grazi noted that EF studies have often delivered ambiguous and surprising insights that suggest there are limitations to which policy questions the EF method can answer [32].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ecological Footprint Analysis Based on Changing Food Consumption in a Poorly Developed Area of China

Zhen

2017

Sustainability

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Abstract:The per capita ecological footprint (EF) is a useful tool to compare consumption with nature's ability to support this consumption. Guyuan is an economically impoverished region in China, where EF provides important insights into whether human consumption can be sustained by the local per capita biological capacity (BC), which represents the environment's ability to support resource use. We estimated the EF of food consumption using local equivalence and yield factors, and compared EF in 1998 and 2013 with BC, which represented the existing biologically productive area (including cultivated land, grassland, forest, and water bodies) that supports this consumption. Data were collected from household surveys, government statistics, and land use maps. We found that food consumption changed, with decreasing consumption of staple foods and increasing consumption of meat, eggs, milk, edible oils, fruit, and vegetables. Decreased staple food consumption decreased the EF for this food group, but the large increase in meat consumption greatly increased EF from meat production (to more than 41 times the 1998 value). Cultivated land contributed greatly to both EF and BC, and staple foods and vegetables were the main EF components for this land. Overall, EF from food consumption decreased from 1998 to 2013, but local BC remained 188,356 ha below EF (i.e., current consumption is not sustainable based on local resources). The Grain for Green program, which focuses on increasing the BC of forest and grassland by replacing degraded cultivated land with these land use types, decreased the BC of cultivated land, leading to wide spatial variation in both EF and BC. These results will inform policy development by revealing the condition of each region's use of the locally available production resources.

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Section: Discussion Of the Resultscontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Footprint Analysis Based on Changing Food Consumption in a Poorly Developed Area of China

Zhen

2017

Sustainability

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“…The first point about reducing the demand for livestock products is, at least in theory, a powerful mitigation option (Schösler et al 2012;Hedenus et al 2014;Davis et al 2016;Herrero et al 2016;Lamb et al 2016). This is particularly true for ruminant meat.…”

Section: Climate Change and Dietary Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental sustainability of insects as food and feed. A review

Huis

Oonincx

2017

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

581

381

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With a growing world population, increasingly demanding consumers, and a limited amount of agricultural land, there is an urgent need to find alternatives to conventional meat products. Livestock production is, moreover, a leading cause of anthropogenic-induced climate change. To mediate this, more sustainable diets are needed, with reduced meat consumption or the use of alternative protein sources. Insects are promoted as human food and animal feed worldwide. In tropical countries, edible insects are harvested from nature, but overexploitation, habitat changes, and environmental contamination threaten this food resource. Therefore, sustainable harvesting practices need to be developed and implemented. We provide examples of (1) aquatic insects whose populations are threatened by pollution, (2) caterpillar species in Africa that are disappearing due to overexploitation and habitat change, (3) edible insects species that are considered pests in agro-ecosystems, and (4) edible insect species that can be conserved and enhanced in forest management systems. Insect farming can be conducted either on small-scale farms or in large-scale industrialized rearing facilities. We review the environmental sustainability of insect farming compared to livestock production. The major environmental advantages of insect farming compared to livestock production are as follows: (1) less land and water is required; (2) greenhouse gas emissions are lower; (3) insects have high feed conversion efficiencies; (4) insects can transform low-value organic by-products into highquality food or feed; and (5) certain insect species can be used as animal feed or aqua feed. For instance, they can replace fish meal, which is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive.However, edible insect species intended for production should be screened for risks to humans, animals, plants, and biodiversity.

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“…These concerns arise after decades of sustained increase in global crop production afforded by the technological innovations of the industrial and green revolutions, such as modern machinery, industrial fertilizers, irrigation pumps, and new cultivars (e.g., [6,7]). Water and land availability remain major constraints on agricultural production and there is an urgent need for solutions that moderate the use of these natural resources to meet future food demand [8,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Savings of Crop Redistribution in the United States

Davis

Seveso

Rulli

et al. 2017

Water

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Demographic growth, changes in diet, and reliance on first-generation biofuels are increasing the human demand for agricultural products, thereby enhancing the human pressure on global freshwater resources. Recent research on the food-water nexus has highlighted how some major agricultural regions of the world lack the water resources required to sustain current growth trends in crop production. To meet the increasing need for agricultural commodities with limited water resources, the water use efficiency of the agricultural sector must be improved. In this regard, recent work indicates that the often overlooked strategy of changing the crop distribution within presently cultivated areas offers promise. Here we investigate the extent to which water in the United States could be saved while improving yields simply by replacing the existing crops with more suitable ones. We propose crop replacement criteria that achieve this goal while preserving crop diversity, economic value, nitrogen fixation, and food protein production. We find that in the United States, these criteria would greatly improve calorie (+46%) and protein (+34%) production and economic value (+208%), with 5% water savings with respect to the present crop distribution. Interestingly, greater water savings could be achieved in water-stressed agricultural regions of the US such as California (56% water savings), and other western states.

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Meeting future food demand with current agricultural resources

Cited by 314 publications

References 60 publications

Ecological Footprint Analysis Based on Changing Food Consumption in a Poorly Developed Area of China

Ecological Footprint Analysis Based on Changing Food Consumption in a Poorly Developed Area of China

The environmental sustainability of insects as food and feed. A review

Water Savings of Crop Redistribution in the United States

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