World agriculture towards 2030/2050: the 2012 revision - Fao

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PROOF COPY Mixed level of inputs Under mixed level of inputs only the best land is assumed to be used for high level input farming, moderately suitable and marginal lands are assumed to be used at intermediate or low level input and management circumstances. The following procedures were applied to individual 5-minute grid-cells. (1) Determine all land very suitable and suitable at high level of inputs. (2) Of the balance of land after (1), determine all land very suitable, suitable or moderately suitable at intermediate level of inputs. (3) Of the balance of land after (1) and (2), determine all suitable land (i.e. very suitable, suitable, moderately suitable or marginally suitable) at low level of inputs. Source: excerpt from Fischer et al. (2010). Table 4.6 Land with rain-fed crop production potential (world; million ha) Total Potential VS** S MS mS vmS NS Total land* 13 295 4 495 1 315 2 187 993 1 111 1 627 6 061 of which in agricultural use (1999/2001) 1 559 1 260 442 616 201 120 104 75 of which rain-fed land 1 283 1 063 381 516 166 93 84 43 of which irrigated land 276 197 61 100 35 27 20 32 Gross balance of land with rain-fed potential 3 236 873 1 571 792 991 1 523 Under forest 3 736 1 601 453 854 293 342 530 1 263 Strictly protected land*** 638 107 30 50 27 39 59 432 Built-up land 152 116 41 61 14 12 10 15 Net balance of land with rain-fed potential 1 412 349 606 458 598 923 Source: GAEZ-v3.0 in Fischer et al. (2011). * Crops considered: cereals, roots and tubers, sugar crops, pulses and oil-bearing crops. ** Suitability classes are defined according to attainable yields as a percentage of the maximum constraint-free yield as follows: VS=Very Suitable, 80-100%, S=Suitable, 60-80%, MS= Moderately Suitable, 40-60% mS=marginally Suitable, 20-40%, vmS=very marginally Suitable, 5-20%, NS=Not Suitable,
PROOF COPY under cultivation. It is interesting to note that of this 1.6 billion ha, some 300 million ha (or 19 percent) of agricultural land is on areas the GAEZ deems only marginally suitable or even not suitable, at least for rainfed agriculture. Such areas might have been made productive by applying irrigation (e.g. 32 million ha in desert areas). Excluding irrigated areas, still some 220 million ha (or 17 percent) of rainfed agriculture is apparently taking place on marginally and not suitable areas. An explanation could be that farmers might have no choice or maybe are prepared to accept (relatively) low yields or that not suitable land (43 million ha) has been made suitable through man-made interventions (e.g. through terracing of land with too steep slopes like in Yemen). The remainder of the discussion below is limited to areas of prime and good quality. Likewise developing countries as a whole have some 2.9 billion ha of prime and good quality land (see Table 4.7) of which a quarter (700 million ha or 24 percent) was in 1999/2001 in use in agriculture. The gross land balance at world level of 3.2 billion ha (2.2 billion ha in developing countries) would therefore seem to provide significant scope for further expansion of agriculture. However, this favourable impression needs to be qualified by a number of considerations and constraints. First, the gross balance ignores land uses other than for growing crops, so forest cover, protected areas and land used for human settlements and economic infrastructure are not taken into account. Excluding prime and good land currently under forests or built-up areas or on strictly protected land (grasslands, scrub and woodland and non-vegetated land not yet in agricultural use), the remaining net balance amounts to 1.4 billion ha (960 million ha in developing countries), still a considerable amount compared with the current arable area. Second, the net land balance is very unevenly distributed among regions and countries. For example, some 85 percent of the remaining 960 million ha in developing countries is to be found in sub-Saharan Africa (450 million ha) and Latin America (360 million ha) with very little or no land remaining in the other regions. In addition, about half of the remaining land is concentrated in just seven countries (Brazil, Argentina, Sudan, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Mozambique). At the other extreme, there is virtually no prime and good land left in many countries in the Near East and North Africa, South Asia, and in Central America and the Caribbean. Even within the relatively land-abundant regions there is great diversity of land availability, in terms of both quantity and quality, among countries and sub-regions Third, and probably more important than allowing for non-agricultural uses of land with crop production potential is the method used to derive the estimates: it is enough for a piece of land to support a single crop at a minimum yield level (40 percent of the maximum constraintfree yield) for it to be classified as suitable (prime or good) land. For example, large tracts of land in North Africa that permit the cultivation of only olive trees (and a few other minor crops) are counted as suitable, even though there may be little use for them in practice. The notion of overall land suitability is therefore of limited meaning, and it is often more appropriate to discuss suitability for individual crops. 110
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WORLD AGRICULTURE TOWARDS 2030/2050
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Acknowledgements PROOF COPY This pa
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Boxes PROOF COPY Box 1.1 Measuring
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PROOF COPY Figure A.2.1.6 India: fo
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PROOF COPY producing countries rema
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PROOF COPY may fall from 2.3 billio
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PROOF COPY Minimum Dietary Energy R
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PROOF COPY Concerning the main prod
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PROOF COPY vegetable oil imports fo
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PROOF COPY constraints can be signi
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PROOF COPY Figure 1.8 Irrigated are
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PROOF COPY Figure 1.9 World cereals
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PROOF COPY for both food and non-fo
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PROOF COPY 2050, reaching a peak of
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PROOF COPY 436 million in the over
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PROOF COPY CHAPTER 2 PROSPECTS FOR
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PROOF COPY Figure 2.1 kcal/person/d
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PROOF COPY The FAO estimates of und
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PROOF COPY by people. In particular
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PROOF COPY production potential. Th
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PROOF COPY Table: Growth in Populat
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PROOF COPY (Figure2.6), at 7.4 bill
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PROOF COPY Table 2.4 GDP assumption
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PROOF COPY Modest reductions in the
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PROOF COPY Such optimism notwithsta
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PROOF COPY in North Africa have hig
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PROOF COPY (which in our data appea
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PROOF COPY The other major commodit
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PROOF COPY Table 2.6 Changes in the
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PROOF COPY • Despite this slow pa
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PROOF COPY undernourishment and the
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PROOF COPY commodities and waste. F
Page 65 and 66: PROOF COPY Where does this leave us
Page 67 and 68: PROOF COPY Figure A.2.1.6 shows the
Page 69 and 70: PROOF COPY cereals for ethanol 41 .
Page 71 and 72: PROOF COPY consumption was heavily
Page 73 and 74: PROOF COPY Figure 3.2 Net agricultu
Page 75 and 76: PROOF COPY It is noted, however, th
Page 77 and 78: PROOF COPY Figure 3.4 Per capita fo
Page 79 and 80: PROOF COPY 2005/07. 45 Not all of t
Page 81 and 82: PROOF COPY Table 3.3 Net trade bala
Page 83 and 84: PROOF COPY growth in the ruminant s
Page 85 and 86: PROOF COPY Table 3.4 Meat: aggregat
Page 87 and 88: PROOF COPY countries in per capita
Page 89 and 90: PROOF COPY associated with such lar
Page 91 and 92: PROOF COPY Figure 3.8 World feed us
Page 93 and 94: PROOF COPY The production of biodie
Page 95 and 96: PROOF COPY the exports of the two m
Page 97 and 98: 3.5 Roots, tubers and plantains 3.5
Page 99 and 100: PROOF COPY the two factors that mak
Page 101 and 102: PROOF COPY Net exports from develop
Page 103 and 104: PROOF COPY Figure 3.14 Sugar net tr
Page 105 and 106: PROOF COPY Climate change In evalua
Page 107 and 108: PROOF COPY Table 4.1 Increases in p
Page 109 and 110: PROOF COPY involved are considerabl
Page 111 and 112: PROOF COPY cropping intensities (6
Page 113 and 114: PROOF COPY No data exist on total h
Page 115: PROOF COPY Box 4.2 Agro-ecological
Page 119 and 120: PROOF COPY products facing finite n
Page 121 and 122: PROOF COPY place in sub-Saharan Afr
Page 123 and 124: PROOF COPY The bulk of arable land
Page 125 and 126: PROOF COPY Figure 4.7 Area equipped
Page 127 and 128: PROOF COPY The developed countries
Page 129 and 130: PROOF COPY 4.2.5 Irrigation water r
Page 131 and 132: PROOF COPY harvested irrigated area
Page 133 and 134: PROOF COPY Figure 4.10 Annual growt
Page 135 and 136: PROOF COPY million ha at an average
Page 137 and 138: PROOF COPY producers 81 are about h
Page 139 and 140: PROOF COPY the often unfavourable a
Page 141 and 142: PROOF COPY Table 4.15 Fertilizer co
Page 143 and 144: PROOF COPY under way for some time,
Page 145 and 146: PROOF COPY Livestock production is
Page 147 and 148: Argentina Bolivia (Plurinational St
Page 149 and 150: Wheat Rice Maize Barley Millet Sorg
Page 151 and 152: PROOF COPY and yields by irrigated
Page 153 and 154: PROOF COPY References Alexandratos,
Page 155 and 156: PROOF COPY FAO (1996), Food, Agricu
Page 157 and 158: PROOF COPY Ma, Hengyun, Jikun Huang
Page 159 and 160: PROOF COPY van der Mensbrugghe, D.,
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