Home Food Are we farming in the wrong areas? Relocating croplands can reverse environmental impacts, say researchers

Are we farming in the wrong areas? Relocating croplands can reverse environmental impacts, say researchers

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Are we farming in the wrong areas? Relocating croplands can reverse environmental impacts, say researchers

Today, close to half of the world’s ice-free land is dedicated to agricultural production.

Converting that natural land into agriculture has contributed to three of humanity’s most dire environmental challenges: the emission of greenhouse gases (food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s GHG emissions), habitat and biodiversity loss, and water scarcity – agriculture is responsible for about 70% of global freshwater consumption.

Restoring converted ecosystems is regarded a ‘key strategy’ in turning the side on environmental destruction. But with growing population numbers, reaching an estimated 9.8bn mouths to feed by 2050, food production would have to be either intensified, or spatially expanded elsewhere.

A team of international researchers from Cambridge, Peking, and Harvard Universities, believe relocating areas represent an environmental opportunity. It may also become a necessity, they wrote their recently published study in Communications Earth & Environment​, for maintaining global food security.

Determining ‘optimal’ distributions

The researchers determined the ‘optimal’ distributions of global croplands that minimise carbon and biodiversity footprints, while ‘obviating’ the need for systemic irrigation under current and future climatic conditions.

To do this, they used global maps of the current growing areas of 25 major crops, including wheat barley and soybean – which together account for over three quarters of croplands worldwide.

By developing a mathematical model, the researchers were able to look at all possible ways of distributing this cropland around the world, while maintaining overall production levels for each crops. This way, they were able to identify the option with the lowest environmental impact.