“Unfarmed arable land: Enough is available to achieve long-lasting food security for mankind”

How will we be successful in feeding the world in 2050? This is the question currently asked by many experts. Confronted with this debate, scientists keep publishing research papers, in particular concerning the current and future availability of arable land, which seems to be one of the key levers to meet the challenge. As for example, a recent study carried out by two researchers at the request of the French Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries that assesses the situation and shows that the extent of usable land not yet farmed is in fact very widespread throughout the world. Even more surprising, arable acreage is quite higher than the needed acreage to ensure food security for mankind. Based on this observation, would the solution consist in formulating appropriate public policies for agricultural prices, access to land and the implementation of research and development projects directed to the needs and abilities of poor farmers?

We highly recommend this article and are presenting below some excerpts.

Excerpts from the survey conducted by the Prospective Center of the French Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries and available from the Ministry’s website:

http://agriculture.gouv.fr/sections/thematiques/prospective-evaluations/publications9108

The current situation

“Since we know the acreage of the various types of arable land (more or less suitable to farming, forested or not) as indicated by the GAEZ1study, as well as farmland acreage in 2005 according to the FAO, we are able to calculate the expansion possibilities of farmed land, both at the global and regional levels. Based on such outlook, we are considering three hypotheses.

In the first and highly restrictive hypothesis, we consider as apt to be farmed the “very suitable”, “suitable” and “moderately suitable” types of land listed in the GAEZ study, with the exception of forested land and the areas needed for urban or other infrastructures. Likewise, “inappropriate” land is not apt for new cultivation.

In the second and less restrictive hypothesis, and in addition to the above-mentioned categories, the “inappropriate” land is considered as apt for new cultivation, with the exception of forested land.

In the third and even less restrictive hypothesis and in addition of the preceding categories, all forested arable land is also considered as apt for new cultivation, which corresponds to a third of the world’s forests––thus keeping intact the remaining two-thirds.

(…)

The result of our first hypothesis converges with the OECD and FAO estimate of “net” global acreage still available for farming. This estimate is 547 million hectares, or 1.35 billion acres, (with the already stated exception of new cultivation of forests, land needed for infrastructures, “inappropriate” land and still all protected zones). Yet, when we subtract from our own result the acreage of these zones––that is to say 481 million hectares or 1.19 billion acres––we get an estimate of 527 (1,008-481) hectares, or 1.3 billion acres, a figure very close to that of the OECD and the FAO. (…)

Farmland expansion opportunities greatly vary from one region to the next. They are particularly high for the first hypothesis in South America and Africa. In the third hypothesis, expansion possibilities would be even higher in South America and Central Africa, provided a little over half and two thirds of forests respectively are cleared. In this third hypothesis, vast areas also seem available in North America and Russia.

On the other hand, already farmed land in the Middle-East and Asia generally exceeds that which would be cultivated in the three examined hypotheses, which means that already farmed areas are higher to those rated as suitable for farming in the GAEZ study. Thus, no expansion of land used for pluvial cultivation seems possible, in the light of the methods used to assess the aptitude of land for farming. However, this is now the case for the third hypothesis in Southeast Asia and Japan: There, clearing forests located on arable land––less than 20 percent of all forests––would allow for the expansion of arable land. (…)

Possible development of arable land including climate change and irrigation

According to the GAEZ study, all scenarios would lead to a limited expansion (1 to 6 percent) of land for grain farming at the global level. In developing countries however, farmable areas would shrink by 1.3 to 11 percent depending on scenarios, while they would notably increase from 11 to 25 percent in developed nations. The SAGE2 results are converging with those of the GAEZ study. They indicate that quite large zones, not farmed in the current climate due to inadequate temperatures, would become farmable. These are the northern zones of the Northern Hemisphere (North Canada, Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China), the southern zones of the Southern Hemisphere (South Chile and Argentina, Tasmania and New Zealand), and the mountain zones mostly located in the Andes and the Himalayas. On the other hand, tropical regions would lose arable land, in particular in zones near currently arid areas, which would become parched due to warmer temperatures. That would be the case for Africa, the north of Latin America up to Mexico, and in Oceania.

The GAEZ study also analyzes the consequences of the optimal development of irrigation on land for grain farming. To that end, it presupposes that all the needed water would be supplied for crops cultivated on low-sloping land developed for irrigation.

Let’s note that to appreciate the real possibilities to expand irrigation, we should also examine the operational water availability, and assess the technical and economic aspects of the feasibility for improvements in the various interested regions.

According to this analysis, irrigation would enable to expand by eight percent the land suitable for grain crops worldwide, by 13 percent in developed countries and by seven percent in developing nations. However, expansion abilities would reach over 25 percent in Central Asia and the Middle East in particular, exactly where the margins for expansion of pluvial crops seem to be nonexistent.

The validity of the above-mentioned results is inevitably limited by the constraints of the databases themselves. (…) In spite of these limitations, the results of this study are throwing light on several current research programs on global agricultural and food forecasting and the possible expansion of farmed land to produce agrofuels, as well as deriving recommendations regarding public policies.

Recommendations for forecasting purposes

We accepted two very contrasting scenarios among the various outlined propositions for agricultural and food forecasting––the FAO scenario and the “Agrimonde 1” scenario.

• The FAO scenario anticipates that, between 2000 and 2050, 90 percent of growth in agricultural production will be generated by increases in yield and crop concentration (number of crops per year on a given area), while only 10 percent will be derived from farmed land expansion. These figures are close to those for the 1960-2000 period––85 and 15 percent respectively. In addition, this scenario foresees a reduction––but a persistence as well––of malnutrition.

Consequently, the scenario considers a 70 million hectares (or 173 million acres) increase of global farmed land, without including crops for agrofuels. Yet, according to the various scenarios examined by G. Fischer, areas reserved to these crops would reach a maximum of 58 million hectares (143 million acres) in 2050. Thus, an estimate of approximately 130 (70 + 58) million hectares (about 320 million acres) of additional farmed land in 2050, a figure much lower than the expansion abilities in our most restrictive hypothesis, even it is were corrected to include the world protected zones, leading to an estimate of 527 million available hectares (1.3 billion acres).

en 2050, un chiffre très inférieur à l’estimation des possibilités d’extension selon notre hypothèse, la plus restrictive, même corrigée pour prendre en compte les zones protégées du monde, ce qui aboutit à une estimation de 527 millions d’hectares disponibles.

• The “Agrimonde 1” scenario strongly contrasts with the previous one, since it plans for a farmed land expansion of 590 million hectares (1.46 billion acres) between 2000 and 2050, 244 million (602 million) of which for agrofuels, mostly in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, this scenario explores the possibilities to develop a “doubly green revolution” that would translate in relatively low yield increases, since essentially based on a better use of ecological treatments of farmed ecosystems and on techniques available to poor producers.

This scenario also foresees the implementation, in each region, of favorable conditions for food security. The figure of 590 million hectares (1.45 billion acres) is slightly higher than the assessment of expansion abilities in our first hypothesis, once corrected to account for protected zones. According to our estimates in the second and third hypotheses, combined with the exclusion of new cultivation for 481 million hectares (1.19 billion acres) in protected zones, it seems possible to expand farmed land by 970 (1,451 - 481) hectares (2.4 billion acres) and 1,875 (2,356 – 481) million hectares (4.63 billion acres) respectively. Still, these figures remain under-evaluated, since protected zones, forests established on arable land as well as land inappropriate for farming, are all interconnected.

With this objective in mind, the figure of 590 million hectares seems not only plausible, but even moderate. All told, according to our results and those of the two prospective scenarios we considered, worldwide farmland that can be used for pluvial crops is largely higher than the land needed to ensure food security conditions for all mankind.

This conclusion remains valid, even if we adopt the hypothesis of a relatively slow growth in yields, according to a scenario of sustainable doubly green revolution, even if we exclude all forests and all currently protected zones from new cultivation, and even if we consider the plausible consequences of global warming.

Recommendations for public policy purposes

Considering that land suitable for pluvial crops (not requiring irrigation) is not, on a global and regional scale, a resource in short supply that limits agricultural production and food consumption, the authorities in charge of agricultural public policies––whether they are national or in the framework of international cooperation––do have some leeway concerning the international approach for agricultural development they will support.

A first approach––backed by most existing institutions––is to pursue policies and practices that have, for several decades, favored an approach of competitive, predominantly unfair and even conflicting, agricultural development characterized by the unfolding of the current agricultural revolution and green revolution with a strong increase in work productivity and land yields for a segment of family farms and large agricultural businesses worldwide, while hundreds of millions of farmers experience impeded growth and then shift in poverty, malnutrition and eventually rural exodus and emigration. Added to these serious societal setbacks, some regions are subjected to ecological setbacks, such as soil salinisation, lowered ground-water tables, soil and water pollution, loss of biodiversity and large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

An alternative approach is to promote diversified low-yield cultures that are frugal in outside inputs and fossil fuels––possibly even not using any––without any negative impact on the environment––or even providing environmental services––and that ensure decent livelihoods to the nearly three billion people, who make up the world’s agricultural population.

In our view, the selection of this alternative approach requires that three main concerns be given top priority in public agricultural policies.

The first one relates to the agricultural prices paid to farmers. It involves an objective of prices that accurately compensate work rendered and ensure decent revenues, as well as remunerate services and charge the social and environmental costs of the various production modes.

The second key concern deals with the access to land. It consists in promoting transparent legal and legislative frameworks that guarantee long-term access to land (and not necessarily through private ownership) to farmers using sustainable production methods. Such priority turns out to be especially necessary in the current context of foreign direct investment in agriculture. The third priority involves research, consultancy, training and dissemination of knowledge. It consists in implementing an inventory of worldwide agricultural production systems that exist throughout the world and match the above-mentioned criteria, as well as in directing agricultural research towards ecological growth methods for poor producers. This implies a type of interactive research that incorporates general scientific and local specific knowledge.

In today’s world, food shortages are not accidental; they are structural and highly significant. In fact, one should increase agricultural production by 30 percent to guarantee adequate nutrition, in quality and not only in caloric content, for all mankind.

The results we just presented are showing that global under-production and under-consumption are not due to the lack of arable land. The critical concerns in this issue involve the ways people are mobilizing resources. It is therefore a basic political issue of social and economic organization”.

1 The Global Agro-Ecological Zones is a database that combines the statistical and satellite-generated records used by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the FAO.
2 The Center for Sustainability And the Global Environment is a database that combines the statistical and satellite-generated records of the University of Wisconsin.