Human appropriation of land for food: The role of diet

Human appropriation of land for food production has fundamentally altered the Earth system, with impacts on water, soil, air quality, and the climate system. Changes in population, dietary preferences, technology and crop productivity have all played important roles in shaping today’s land use. In this paper, we explore how past and present developments in diets impact on global agricultural land use. We introduce an index for the Human Appropriation of Land for Food (HALF), and use it to isolate the effects of diets on agricultural land areas, including the potential consequences of shifts in consumer food preferences. We find that if the global population adopted consumption patterns equivalent to particular current national per capita rates, agricultural land use area requirements could vary over a 14-fold range. Within these variations, the types of food commodities consumed are more important than the quantity of per-capita consumption in determining the agricultural land requirement, largely due to the impact of animal products and in particular ruminant species. Exploration of the average diets in the USA and India (which lie towards but not at global consumption extremes) provides a framework for understanding land use impacts arising from different food consumption habits. Hypothetically, if the world were to adopt the average Indian diet, 55% less agricultural land would be needed to satisfy demand, while global consumption of the average USA diet would necessitate 178% more land. Waste and over-eating are also shown to be important. The area associated with food waste, including over-consumption, given global adoption of the consumption patterns of the average person in the USA, was found to be twice that required for all food production given an average Indian per capita consumption. Therefore, measures to influence future diets and reduce food waste could substantially contribute towards global food security, as well as providing climate change mitigation options.     

Exploring future changes in smallholder farming systems by linking socio-economic scenarios with regional and household models

We explore how smallholder agricultural systems in the Kenyan highlands might intensify and/or diversify in the future under a range of socio-economic scenarios. Data from approximately 3000 households were analyzed and farming systems characterized. Plausible socio-economic scenarios of how Kenya might evolve, and their potential impacts on the agricultural sector, were developed with a range of stakeholders. We study how different types of farming systems might increase or diminish in importance under different scenarios using a land-use model sensitive to prices, opportunity cost of land and labour, and other variables. We then use a household model to determine the types of enterprises in which different types of households might engage under different socio-economic conditions. Trajectories of intensification, diversification, and stagnation for different farming systems are identified. Diversification with cash crops is found to be a key intensification strategy as farm size decreases and labour costs increase. Dairy expansion, while important for some trajectories, is mostly viable when land available is not a constraint, mainly due to the need for planting fodders at the expense of cropland areas. We discuss the results in relation to induced innovation theories of intensification. We outline how the methodology employed could be used for integrating global and regional change assessments with local-level studies on farming options, adaptation to global change, and upscaling of social, environmental and economic impacts of agricultural development investments and interventions.     

The global cropland footprint of Denmark's food supply 2000–2013

The global use of and pressure on land resources will continue to rise in tandem with the predicted rise in global population and food demand. Addressing unavoidable trade-offs between satisfying human needs and biodiversity conservation for future generations is of paramount importance when tackling the global environmental challenges of land use. Food consumption patterns are inextricably linked to land-use and land-use changes. The domestic supply and final use of food by humans and feed by animals within the borders of a country have environmental impacts overseas. Countries like Denmark, with considerably high livestock production, import “virtual” land needed to produce cereals and other fodder crops. Denmark's high meat and dairy consumption and trade levels make it a compelling case for this study. The overarching question is: how much land is required to support food and feed consumption in Denmark? This paper assesses the global cropland footprint of Danish food and feed supply from 2000 to 2013 using a consumption-based physical accounting approach. In addition to domestic croplands for local food and supply, we estimate the hectares of cropland displaced in other countries to satisfy Danish demand for food and feed in this period. Secondly, we calculate Denmark's global cropland requirements for the supply of specific livestock products, namely; pork, eggs, beef, milk, and mutton. Globally, animals provide a third of the protein in human diets and agricultural GDP. The total global cropland footprint of Danish food and feed supply decreased by 18% from 1568 kha in 2000 to 1282 kha in 2013 because of a reduction in the consumption of ruminant livestock products. A high share of this reduction can be attributed to increased local self-sufficiency in feed supply as opposed to rising food imports. The share of cropland used for feed in total cropland declined by 5% whereas the share of cropland used for food increased from 28% in 2000 to 32% by 2013. Our findings suggest that reducing domestic meat consumption coupled with local self-sufficiency policies for both food and feed supply could be a means of lowering ecological degradation in exporting countries.     

Demand for biodiversity protection and carbon storage as drivers of global land change scenarios

Many global land change scenarios are driven by demand for food, feed, fiber, and fuel. However, novel demands for other ecosystem services give rise to nexus issues and can lead to different land system changes. In this paper we explore the effects of including multiple different demands in land change scenarios. Our reference scenario is driven by demands for crop production, ruminant livestock production, and provisioning of built-up area. We then compare two alternative scenarios with additional demands for terrestrial carbon storage and biodiversity protection, respectively. These scenarios represent possible implementations of globally agreed policy targets. The simulated land system change scenarios are compared in terms of changes in cropland intensity and area, as well as tree and grassland area changes. We find that the carbon and biodiversity scenarios generally result in greater intensification and less expansion of cropland, with the biodiversity scenario showing a stronger intensification effect. However, the impact of setting the targets impacts different world regions in different ways. Overall, both scenarios result in a larger tree area compared to the reference scenario, while the carbon scenario also yields more grassland area. The land systems simulated while accounting for these additional demand types show strong patterns of specialization and spatial segregation in the provisioning of goods and services in different world regions. Our results indicate the relevance of including demands for multiple different goods and services in global land change assessments.     

Mapping global land system archetypes

Land use is a key driver of global environmental change. Unless major shifts in consumptive behaviours occur, land-based production will have to increase drastically to meet future demands for food and other commodities. One approach to better understand the drivers and impacts of agricultural intensification is the identification of global, archetypical patterns of land systems. Current approaches focus on broad-scale representations of dominant land cover with limited consideration of land-use intensity. In this study, we derived a new global representation of land systems based on more than 30 high-resolution datasets on land-use intensity, environmental conditions and socioeconomic indicators. Using a self-organizing map algorithm, we identified and mapped twelve archetypes of land systems for the year 2005. Our analysis reveals similarities in land systems across the globe but the diverse pattern at sub-national scales implies that there are no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions to sustainable land management. Our results help to identify generic patterns of land pressures and environmental threats and provide means to target regionalized strategies to cope with the challenges of global change. Mapping global archetypes of land systems represents a first step towards better understanding the global patterns of human–environment interactions and the environmental and social outcomes of land system dynamics.     

When enough should be enough: Improving the use of current agricultural lands could meet production demands and spare natural habitats in Brazil

Providing food and other products to a growing human population while safeguarding natural ecosystems and the provision of their services is a significant scientific, social and political challenge. With food demand likely to double over the next four decades, anthropization is already driving climate change and is the principal force behind species extinction, among other environmental impacts. The sustainable intensification of production on current agricultural lands has been suggested as a key solution to the competition for land between agriculture and natural ecosystems. However, few investigations have shown the extent to which these lands can meet projected demands while considering biophysical constraints. Here we investigate the improved use of existing agricultural lands and present insights into avoiding future competition for land. We focus on Brazil, a country projected to experience the largest increase in agricultural production over the next four decades and the richest nation in terrestrial carbon and biodiversity. Using various models and climatic datasets, we produced the first estimate of the carrying capacity of Brazil's 115 million hectares of cultivated pasturelands. We then investigated if the improved use of cultivated pasturelands would free enough land for the expansion of meat, crops, wood and biofuel, respecting biophysical constraints (i.e., terrain, climate) and including climate change impacts. We found that the current productivity of Brazilian cultivated pasturelands is 32–34% of its potential and that increasing productivity to 49–52% of the potential would suffice to meet demands for meat, crops, wood products and biofuels until at least 2040, without further conversion of natural ecosystems. As a result up to 14.3 Gt CO₂ Eq could be mitigated. The fact that the country poised to undergo the largest expansion of agricultural production over the coming decades can do so without further conversion of natural habitats provokes the question whether the same can be true in other regional contexts and, ultimately, at the global scale.     

Land-use transition for bioenergy and climate stabilization: model comparison of drivers,impacts and interactions with other land use based mitigation options

In this article, we evaluate and compare results from three integrated assessment models (GCAM, IMAGE, and ReMIND/MAgPIE) regarding the drivers and impacts of bioenergy production on the global land system. The considered model frameworks employ linked energy, economy, climate and land use modules. By the help of these linkages the direct competition of bioenergy with other energy technology options for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, based on economic costs and GHG emissions from bioenergy production, has been taken into account. Our results indicate that dedicated bioenergy crops and biomass residues form a potentially important and cost-effective input into the energy system. At the same time, however, the results differ strongly in terms of deployment rates, feedstock composition and land-use and greenhouse gas implications. The current paper adds to earlier work by specific looking into model differences with respect to the land-use component that could contribute to the noted differences in results, including land cover allocation, land use constraints, energy crop yields, and non-bioenergy land mitigation options modeled. In scenarios without climate change mitigation, bioenergy cropland represents 10–18 % of total cropland by 2100 across the different models, and boosts cropland expansion at the expense of carbon richer ecosystems. Therefore, associated emissions from land-use change and agricultural intensification as a result of bio-energy use range from 14 and 113 Gt CO2-eq cumulatively through 2100. Under climate policy, bioenergy cropland increases to 24–36 % of total cropland by 2100.     

Land use biodiversity impacts embodied in international food trade

Agricultural land use to meet the demands of a growing population, changing diets, lifestyles and biofuel production is a significant driver of biodiversity loss. Globally applicable methods are needed to assess biodiversity impacts hidden in internationally traded food items. We used the countryside species area relationship (SAR) model to estimate the mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles species lost (i.e. species ‘committed to extinction’) due to agricultural land use within each of the 804 terrestrial ecoregion. These species lost estimates were combined with high spatial resolution global maps of crop yields to calculate species lost per ton for 170 crops in 184 countries. Finally, the impacts per ton were linked with the bilateral trade data of crop products between producing and consuming countries from FAO, to calculate the land use biodiversity impacts embodied in international crop trade and consumption. We found that 83% of total species loss is incurred due to agriculture land use devoted for domestic consumption whereas 17% is due to export production. Exports from Indonesia to USA and China embody highest impacts (20 species lost at the regional level each). In general, industrialized countries with high per capita GDP tend to be major net importers of biodiversity impacts from developing tropical countries. Results show that embodied land area is not a good proxy for embodied biodiversity impacts in trade flows, as crops occupying little global area such as sugarcane, palm oil, rubber and coffee have disproportionately high biodiversity impacts.     

Land-use futures in the shared socio-economic pathways

In the future, the land system will be facing new intersecting challenges. While food demand, especially for resource-intensive livestock based commodities, is expected to increase, the terrestrial system has large potentials for climate change mitigation through improved agricultural management, providing biomass for bioenergy, and conserving or even enhancing carbon stocks of ecosystems. However, uncertainties in future socio-economic land use drivers may result in very different land-use dynamics and consequences for land-based ecosystem services. This is the first study with a systematic interpretation of the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSPs) in terms of possible land-use changes and their consequences for the agricultural system, food provision and prices as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, five alternative Integrated Assessment Models with distinctive land-use modules have been used for the translation of the SSP narratives into quantitative projections. The model results reflect the general storylines of the SSPs and indicate a broad range of potential land-use futures with global agricultural land of 4900 mio ha in 2005 decreasing by 743 mio ha until 2100 at the lower (SSP1) and increasing by 1080 mio ha (SSP3) at the upper end. Greenhouse gas emissions from land use and land use change, as a direct outcome of these diverse land-use dynamics, and agricultural production systems differ strongly across SSPs (e.g. cumulative land use change emissions between 2005 and 2100 range from −54 to 402 Gt CO₂). The inclusion of land-based mitigation efforts, particularly those in the most ambitious mitigation scenarios, further broadens the range of potential land futures and can strongly affect greenhouse gas dynamics and food prices. In general, it can be concluded that low demand for agricultural commodities, rapid growth in agricultural productivity and globalized trade, all most pronounced in a SSP1 world, have the potential to enhance the extent of natural ecosystems, lead to lowest greenhouse gas emissions from the land system and decrease food prices over time. The SSP-based land use pathways presented in this paper aim at supporting future climate research and provide the basis for further regional integrated assessments, biodiversity research and climate impact analysis.     

Food production and climate protection—What abandoned lands can do to preserve natural forests

Approaches to reconciling food production with climatic and environmental protection often require agricultural intensification. The production of more food per unit of agricultural land through “sustainable intensification” is intended to enable the protection of natural ecosystems elsewhere (land sparing). However, there are problems associated with agricultural intensification; such as soil erosion, eutrophication or pollution of water bodies with chemicals, landscape homogenization and loss of biodiversity; for which solutions have not yet been found. Reuse of abandoned agricultural lands – which are abundant throughout the world – to address the rising demand for food is a potentially important alternative, which up to now has been widely ignored. To test the power of this alternative, equilibrium economic land allocation to various land-use practices by risk-avoiding tropical farmers in Ecuador was simulated. The reestablishment of pastures on abandoned cattle lands lowered prices for pasture products, and also triggered conversion of existing pasture into cropland. The resulting land-use change increased total annual food production in a moderate scenario from the current level of 17.8–23.1 petacalories (10¹⁵ calories), which amounted to a production increase of 30%. At the same time, there was a 19% reduction in the amount of payments to farmers required to preserve tropical forests – one of the world's greatest terrestrial carbon stores.     

Land-use and sustainability under intersecting global change and domestic policy scenarios: Trajectories for Australia to 2050

Understanding potential future influence of environmental, economic, and social drivers on land-use and sustainability is critical for guiding strategic decisions that can help nations adapt to change, anticipate opportunities, and cope with surprises. Using the Land-Use Trade-Offs (LUTO) model, we undertook a comprehensive, detailed, integrated, and quantitative scenario analysis of land-use and sustainability for Australia’s agricultural land from 2013–2050, under interacting global change and domestic policies, and considering key uncertainties. We assessed land use competition between multiple land-uses and assessed the sustainability of economic returns and ecosystem services at high spatial (1.1 km grid cells) and temporal (annual) resolution. We found substantial potential for land-use transition from agriculture to carbon plantings, environmental plantings, and biofuels cropping under certain scenarios, with impacts on the sustainability of economic returns and ecosystem services including food/fibre production, emissions abatement, water resource use, biodiversity services, and energy production. However, the type, magnitude, timing, and location of land-use responses and their impacts were highly dependent on scenario parameter assumptions including global outlook and emissions abatement effort, domestic land-use policy settings, land-use change adoption behaviour, productivity growth, and capacity constraints. With strong global abatement incentives complemented by biodiversity-focussed domestic land-use policy, land-use responses can substantially increase and diversify economic returns to land and produce a much wider range of ecosystem services such as emissions abatement, biodiversity, and energy, without major impacts on agricultural production. However, better governance is needed for managing potentially significant water resource impacts. The results have wide-ranging implications for land-use and sustainability policy and governance at global and domestic scales and can inform strategic thinking and decision-making about land-use and sustainability in Australia. A comprehensive and freely available 26 GB data pack (http://doi.org/10.4225/08/5604A2E8A00CC) provides a unique resource for further research. As similarly nuanced transformational change is also possible elsewhere, our template for comprehensive, integrated, quantitative, and high resolution scenario analysis can support other nations in strategic thinking and decision-making to prepare for an uncertain future.     

The effect of industrialization and globalization on domestic land-use: A global resource footprint perspective

Land-use activities are increasingly globalized and industrialized. While this contributes to a reduction of pressure on domestic ecosystems in some regions, spillover effects from these processes represent potential obstacles for global sustainable land-use. This contribution scrutinizes the complex global resource nexus of national land-use intensity, international trade of biomass goods, and resource footprints in land-use systems. Via a systematic account of the global human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) and input–output modelling, we demonstrate that with growing income countries reduce their reliance on local renewable resources, while simultaneously consuming more biomass goods produced in other countries requiring higher energy and material inputs. The characteristic 'outsourcing' country appropriates 43% of its domestic net primary production, but net-imports a similar amount (64 gigajoules per capita and year) from other countries and requires energy (11 GJ/cap/yr) and material (~400 kg/cap/yr) inputs four to five times higher as the majority of the global population to sustain domestic land-use intensification. This growing societal disconnect from domestic ecological productivity enables a domestic conservation of ecosystems while satisfying growing demand. However, it does not imply a global decoupling of biomass consumption from resource and land requirements.     

The land cover and carbon cycle consequences of large-scale utilizations of biomass as an energy source

The use of modern biomass for energy generation has been considered in many studies as a possible measure for reducing or stabilizing global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. In this paper we assess the impacts of large-scale global utilization of biomass on regional and grid scale land cover, greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon cycle. We have implemented in the global environmental change model IMAGE the LESS biomass intensive scenario, which was developed for the Second Assessment Report of IPCC. This scenario illustrates the potential for reducing energy related emission by different sets of fuel mixes and a higher energy efficiency. Our analysis especially covers different consequences involved with such modern biomass scenarios. We emphasize influences of CO₂ concentrations and climate change on biomass crop yield, land use, competition between food and biomass crops, and the different interregional trade patterns for modern biomass based energy. Our simulations show that the original LESS scenario is rather optimistic on the land requirements for large-scale biomass plantations. Our simulations show that 797 Mha is required while the original LESS scenario is based on 550 Mha. Such expansion of agricultural land will influence deforestation patterns and have significant consequenses for environmental issues, such as biodiversity. Altering modern biomass requirements and the locations where they are grown in the scenario shows that the outcome is sensitive for regional emissions and feedbacks in the C cycle and that competition between food and modern biomass can be significant. We conclude that the cultivation of large quantities of modern biomass is feasible, but that its effectiveness to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases has to be evaluated in combination with many other environmental land use and socio-economic factors.     

Scenarios of land use and land cover change in the conterminous United States: Utilizing the special report on emission scenarios at ecoregional scales

Global environmental change scenarios have typically provided projections of land use and land cover for a relatively small number of regions or using a relatively coarse resolution spatial grid, and for only a few major sectors. The coarseness of global projections, in both spatial and thematic dimensions, often limits their direct utility at scales useful for environmental management. This paper describes methods to downscale projections of land-use and land-cover change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Special Report on Emission Scenarios to ecological regions of the conterminous United States, using an integrated assessment model, land-use histories, and expert knowledge. Downscaled projections span a wide range of future potential conditions across sixteen land use/land cover sectors and 84 ecological regions, and are logically consistent with both historical measurements and SRES characteristics. Results appear to provide a credible solution for connecting regionalized projections of land use and land cover with existing downscaled climate scenarios, under a common set of scenario-based socioeconomic assumptions.     

Global inequalities in food consumption,cropland demand and land-use efficiency: A decomposition analysis

The world population is expected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050 and to ~11 billion by 2100, and securing its healthy nutrition is a key concern. As global fertile land is limited, the question arises whether growth in food consumption associated with increased affluence surmounts increases in land-use efficiency (measured as food supply per cropland area) associated with technological progress. Furthermore, substantial inequalities prevail in the global food system: While overly rich diets represent a serious health issue for many of the world’s most affluent inhabitants and constitute a critical climate-change driver, undernourishment and hunger still threaten a considerable fraction of the world population, mostly in low-income countries. We here analyze trajectories in cropland demand and their main basic drivers food consumption (measured by a food index reflecting the share of animal products in diets) and land-use efficiency, for 123 countries (clustered in four income groups, covering 94% of the world population). We cover the period 1990–2013 and assess if these trajectories are associated with changes in inequality between countries. We find that while all groups of countries converged towards the high level of the per-capita food consumption of high-income countries, differences between income groups remained pronounced. Overall, cropland demand per capita declined over the entire period in all regions except low income countries, resulting in a tendency towards global convergence. However, the trend slowed in the last years. In contrast, land-use efficiency increased in all income groups with a similar trend, hence international inequalites in land-use efficiency remained almost unaltered. Because population and food requirements per capita are expected to grow in all income groups except the richest ones, failure to improve land efficiency sufficiently could lead to a less unequal but at the same time less ecologically sustainable world. Avoiding such outcomes may be possible by reducing the consumption of animal products in the richer countries and raising land-use efficiency in the poorer countries.     

Greedy or needy? Land use and climate impacts of food in 2050 under different livestock futures

Both supply and demand side changes are necessary to achieve a sustainable food system. However, the weight accorded to these depends on one’s view of what the priority goals are for the food system and the extent to which production systems versus consumption patterns are open to change. Some stakeholders see the problem as one of ‘not enough food’ and focus on the need to sustainably increase supply, while others consider the resource demanding and ‘greedy’ consumption patterns of the Western world as the main problem and emphasize the need to shift diets. In this study global land use and greenhouse gas emissions are estimated for a set of scenarios, building on four ‘livestock futures’ reflecting these different perspectives. These scenarios are: further intensification of livestock systems; a transition to plant-based eating; a move towards artificial meat and dairy; and a future in which livestock production is restricted to the use of ‘ecological leftovers’ i.e. grass from pastures, food waste and food and agricultural byproducts. Two dietary variants for each scenario are modelled: 1) a projected diet following current trends and 2) a healthy diet with more fruits and vegetables and fewer animal products, vegetable oils and sugar. Livestock production in all scenarios (except the baseline scenario) was assumed to intensify to current levels of intensive production in North-Western Europe. For each scenario, several variant assumptions about yield increases and waste reductions were modelled. Results show that without improvements in crop productivity or reductions on today’s waste levels available cropland will only suffice if production of all protein currently supplied by animal foods is replaced by (hypothetical) artificial variants not requiring any land. With livestock intensities corresponding to current ones in North-Western Europe and with yield gaps closed by 50% and waste reduced by 50%, available cropland will suffice for all scenarios that include a reduction of animal products and/or a transition to poultry or aquaculture. However, in the scenario based on an extrapolation of current consumption patterns (animal product amounts and types consumed in proportions corresponding to the current average consumption in different world regions) and with livestock production based on feed from cropland, available cropland will not be enough. The scenario that makes use of pastures for ruminant production and food waste for pigs, uses considerably less cropland and could provide 40–56 kg per capita per year of red meat. However, such a livestock future would not reduce GHG emissions from agriculture on current levels. This study confirms previous research that to achieve a sustainable food future, action is needed on all fronts; improved supply and reduced demand and waste.     

Baseline scenarios of global environmental change

This paper presents three baseline scenarios of no policy action computed by the IMAGE 2 model. These scenarios cover a wide range of coupled global change Indicators, including: energy demand and consumption; food demand, consumption, and production; changes in land cover including changes in extent of agricultural land and forest; emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone precursors; and climate change and its impacts on sea level rise, crop productivity and natural vegetation. Scenario information is available for the entire world with regional and grid scale detail, and covers from 1970 to 2100. The scenarios indicate that the coming decades could be a period of relatively rapid global environmental change as compared to the period before and after. The natural vegetation in industrialized regions could be threatened by climate change, but abandonment of agricultural lands could also make new lands available for reforestation and revegetation. The opposite is true for most of Asia and Africa. Here the impacts of climate change on vegetation may not be as significant as in temperate climates, but the demand for food will lead to a significant expansion of agricultural lands at the expense of remaining forests and other natural areas.     

Trade-offs of different land and bioenergy policies on the path to achieving climate targets

Many papers have shown that bioenergy and land-use are potentially important elements in a strategy to limit anthropogenic climate change. But, significant expansion of bioenergy production can have a large terrestrial footprint. In this paper, we test the implications for land use, the global energy system, emissions and mitigation costs of meeting a specific climate target, using a single fossil fuel and industrial sector policy instrument, but with five alternative bioenergy and land-use policy architectures. These scenarios are illustrative in nature, and designed to explore trade-offs. We find that the policies we examined have differing effects on the different segments of the economy. Comprehensive land policies can reduce land-use change emissions, increasing allowable emissions in the energy system, but have implications for the cost of food. Bioenergy penalties and constraints, on the other hand, have little effect on food prices, but result in less bioenergy and thus can increase mitigation costs and energy prices.     

The carbon cost of agricultural production in the global land rush

Increases in the number of large-scale land transactions (LSLTs), commonly known as ‘land grabbing’ or ‘global land rush,’ have occurred throughout the lower- and middle-income world over the past two decades. Despite substantial and continuing concerns about the negative socio-environmental impacts of LSLTs, trade-off analysis on boosting crop yield and minimizing climate-related effects remains limited. Our study makes use of a global dataset on LSLTs for agricultural production to estimate potential carbon emissions based on different scenarios of land cover change and fertilizer use, as well as potential value of agricultural production on transacted land. We show that, if fully implemented on ∼ 38 M ha of transacted land, 2.51 GtC will be emitted during land conversion, with another 24.2 MtC/year emitted from fertilizer use, assuming farming technology of investors’ origin is adopted on transacted land. Comparison of different combinations of forest protection policies and agricultural intensification levels reveals that enforcing strict deforestation regulation while promoting fertilizer use rate improves the carbon efficiency of agricultural production. Additionally, positive spillovers of investors’ farming technology on existing arable lands of host countries can potentially double their crop yield. Our analyses thus suggest that fostering agricultural intensification and technology spillovers under strict regulation on land allocation to investors to protect forests would allow for boosting agricultural yield while minimizing carbon emissions.     

Supply of carbon sequestration and biodiversity services from Australia's agricultural land under global change

Global agroecosystems can contribute to both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, and market mechanisms provide a highly prospective means of achieving these outcomes. However, the ability of markets to motivate the supply of carbon sequestration and biodiversity services from agricultural land is uncertain, especially given the future changes in environmental, economic, and social drivers. We quantified the potential supply of these services from the intensive agricultural land of Australia from 2013 to 2050 under four global outlooks in response to a carbon price and biodiversity payment scheme. Each global outlook specified emissions pathways, climate, food demand, energy price, and carbon price modeled using the Global Integrated Assessment Model (GIAM). Using a simplified version of the Land Use Trade-Offs (LUTO) model, economic returns to agriculture, carbon plantings, and environmental plantings were calculated each year. The supply of carbon sequestration and biodiversity services was then quantified given potential land use change under each global outlook, and the sensitivity of the results to key parameters was assessed. We found that carbon supply curves were similar across global outlooks. Sharp increases in carbon sequestration supply occurred at carbon prices exceeding 50 $ tCO₂⁻¹ in 2015 and exceeding 65 $ tCO₂⁻¹ in 2050. Based on GIAM-modeled carbon prices, little carbon sequestration was expected at 2015 under any global outlook. However, at 2050 expected carbon supply under each outlook differed markedly, ranging from 0 to 189 MtCO₂ yr⁻¹. Biodiversity services of 3.32% of the maximum may be achieved in 2050 for a 1 $B investment under median scenario settings. We conclude that a carbon market can motivate supply of substantial carbon sequestration but only modest amounts of biodiversity services from agricultural land. A complementary biodiversity payment can synergistically increase the supply of biodiversity services but will not provide much additional carbon sequestration. The results were sensitive to global drivers, especially the carbon price, and the domestic drivers of adoption hurdle rate and agricultural productivity. The results can inform the design of an effective national policy and institutional portfolio addressing the dual objectives of climate change and biodiversity conservation that is robust to future uncertainty in both national and global drivers.