The global cropland-sparing potential of high-yield farming

Christian Folberth (), Nikolay Khabarov, Juraj Balkovič, Rastislav Skalský, Piero Visconti, Philippe Ciais, Ivan A. Janssens, Josep Peñuelas and Michael Obersteiner
Additional contact information
Christian Folberth: Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Nikolay Khabarov: Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Juraj Balkovič: Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Rastislav Skalský: Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Piero Visconti: Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Philippe Ciais: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, CEA CNRS UVSQ Orme des Merisiers
Ivan A. Janssens: University of Antwerp
Josep Peñuelas: CSIC, Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CEAB-UAB, Bellaterra
Michael Obersteiner: Ecosystem Services and Management Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

Nature Sustainability, 2020, vol. 3, issue 4, 281-289

Abstract: Abstract The global expansion of cropland exerts substantial pressure on natural ecosystems and is expected to continue with population growth and affluent demand. Yet earlier studies indicated that crop production could be more than doubled if attainable crop yields were achieved on present cropland. Here we show on the basis of crop modelling that closing current yield gaps by spatially optimizing fertilizer inputs and allocating 16 major crops across global cropland would allow reduction of the cropland area required to maintain present production volumes by nearly 50% of its current extent. Enforcing a scenario abandoning cropland in biodiversity hotspots and uniformly releasing 20% of cropland area for other landscape elements would still enable reducing the cropland requirement by almost 40%. As a co-benefit, greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer and paddy rice, as well as irrigation water requirements, are likely to decrease with a reduced area of cultivated land, while global fertilizer input requirements remain unchanged. Spared cropland would provide space for substantial carbon sequestration in restored natural vegetation. Only targeted sparing of biodiversity hotspots supports species with small-range habitats, while biodiversity would hardly profit from a maximum land-sparing approach.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0505-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natsus:v:3:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1038_s41893-020-0505-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/

DOI: 10.1038/s41893-020-0505-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Sustainability is currently edited by Monica Contestabile

More articles in Nature Sustainability from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().