UN warns against 60% expansion in cropland to meet food demand
The report, unveiled by the UN at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, suggests rising demand for food could lead to a global cropland expansion of 320 to 850m hectares (ha).
This, says the UN, would put greater strain of the environment’s capacity for regeneration.
“Expansion of such magnitude is simply not compatible with the imperative of sustaining the basic life-supporting services that ecosystems provide such as maintaining soil productivity, regulating water resources, sustaining forest cover or conserving biodiversity,” said the International Resource Panel, a science think tank within the UN’s Environment Programme.
Expansion of cropland should be limited from 8% to 37%, says the report, which is titled ‘Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth’.
Agriculture accounts for more than 30% of world land area and around 1.5bn hectares are used for crops. The area used for growing crops increased by 11% between 1961 and 2007, with most of the expansion in South America, Africa and Asia. The amount decreased in Europe and north America.
Technological innovations such as fertilisers and machinery and irrigation have contributed significantly to increases in food production over the last 50 years.
But they have also had impacts on the environment and health, through soil erosion, eutrophication, salinisation and contamination of food and water reserves from agro-chemicals, the reports says.
The International Resource Panel calls on governments to take immediate action to prevent the degradation of land and soils and to carry out measures to regenerate destroyed areas, rather than moving agricultural production to new sites, through deforestation, for example.
“Cropland expansion at the cost of tropical forests and savannahs induces severe changes in the living environment with uncertain repercussions,” the report states.
Ecology group Friends of the Earth Europe welcomed the UN’s report, adding that it is urgent for Europe and other high-consuming world regions to reduce their land consumption. This must mean no expansion of land for biofuels or biomass, as well as reducing Europe’s consumption of meat and dairy products, the group stated.
Friends of the Earth Europe resource use campaigner, Ariadna Rodrigo, said: “It’s good that the UN is stressing the seriousness of this issue and it’s no surprise the amount of land we use around the world just isn’t sustainable.
“We are adding to destruction of wildlife and high food prices for the poor. Cutting our land footprint will have positive benefits for the environment, economy and broader society.”
