Relocating croplands could drastically reduce the environmental impacts of global food production

• DOI: 10.1038/s43247-022-00360-6
• Publication Date: 2022-03-10T11:06:26Z
• Authors: Robert M. Beyer; Fangyuan Hua; Philip A. Martin; Andrea Manica; Tim Rademacher
• Keywords: Carbon sequestration; 0301 basic medicine; 550; Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture; Economics; Agricultural engineering; Macroeconomics; Agricultural productivity; Agricultural and Biological Sciences; Engineering; 11. Sustainability; GE1-350; Production (economics); 2. Zero hunger; QE1-996.5; Global and Planetary Change; Global Analysis of Ecosystem Services and Land Use; Ecology; Life Sciences; Geology; Agriculture; Biodiversity; Crop Production; 6. Clean water; Sustainability; Physical Sciences; Sustainable Diets and Environmental Impact; 570; 41 Environmental Sciences; Greenhouse gas; Mathematical analysis; Environmental science; 03 medical and health sciences; FOS: Mathematics; Ecosystem services; Ecological footprint; Crop yield; Agroforestry; Irrigation; Biology; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Ecosystem; Distribution (mathematics); 4104 Environmental Management; 15. Life on land; Carbon footprint; Environmental sciences; Carbon dioxide; 13. Climate action; FOS: Biological sciences; Environmental Science; Mathematics

AbstractAgricultural production has replaced natural ecosystems across the planet, becoming a major driver of carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, and freshwater consumption. Here we combined global crop yield and environmental data in a ~1-million-dimensional mathematical optimisation framework to determine how optimising the spatial distribution of global croplands could reduce environmental impacts whilst maintaining current crop production levels. We estimate that relocating current croplands to optimal locations, whilst allowing ecosystems in then-abandoned areas to regenerate, could simultaneously decrease the current carbon, biodiversity, and irrigation water footprint of global crop production by 71%, 87%, and 100%, respectively, assuming high-input farming on newly established sites. The optimal global distribution of crops is largely similar for current and end-of-century climatic conditions across emission scenarios. Substantial impact reductions could already be achieved by relocating only a small proportion of worldwide crop production, relocating croplands only within national borders, and assuming less intensive farming systems.