蜜豆视频

The competition for land sets up hard choices in the decades ahead, warned Janet Ranganathan, Vice President for Research, Data, and Innovation, World Resources Institute: 鈥淭he question is, how can we reconcile humanity鈥檚 competing land demands with the need to combat climate change, protect biodiversity and improve people鈥檚 lives?鈥�

The land squeeze is already on. In the past 100 years, 70% of grasslands, 50% of savannas and 24% of forests were converted for agriculture. About 75% of land is now used for production for human consumption, with only 25% remaining for conservation and biodiversity.

That poses a challenge when compared with the projected additional land needed to feed, fuel and shelter a global population of about 10 billion people by 2050, Ranganathan said. Even with assumed optimistic increases in crop yield, that estimate implies a 200-million-megahectares (MHA) expansion in cropland, 400 MHA in additional pasture and an 80-MHA increase in urban areas.

But that land is also to needed in the fight to bring emissions under control by protecting and restoring forests and other natural systems. To meet climate and biodiversity goals, the objectives included protecting 30% of land and achieving zero deforestation by 2030. The reforestation goal is 585-680 MHA by 2050.

Those goals make 鈥渇ood the mother of all sustainability challenges,鈥� Ranganathan said, citing three gaps. This first is a 56% gap between the amount of food that the world produces today versus what will be needed in 2050. The second gap is the food sector鈥檚 need to reduce its green-house gas (GHG) emissions by 11Gt to meet the global objectives by 2050. She noted that if agriculture continued to operate as business as usual, it would take up 70% of the world鈥檚 economy GHG budget. The third gap is a 593-million-hectare land gap (an area nearly twice the size of India) between global agricultural land area in 2010 and expected agricultural expansion by 2050.

These solutions are interdependent, she noted: 鈥淲e need to apply all of them to address the looming land crunch.鈥�

Eliminating wastes in the current food production and delivery would have 鈥渉uge implications鈥� in our ability to address these challenges, said Darren Rabenou, head of Food & Agriculture and ESG Investment Real Estate, Private Markets, 蜜豆视频 Asset Management. About 20% of food production by farms is wasted, he said, mostly because of inadequate storage. The US Department of Agriculture has set a goal of reducing food waste by 50%.

Ranganathan and Rabenou cautioned that some approaches described as sustainable have unintended consequences that make it more difficult to achieve climate and food production objectives. Organic farming may use fewer chemicals but also has lower yields, which implies a need for more land to achieve production equivalent to conventional farming methods. Greenhouses use 70% to 80% less water than conventional farming methods but often use more power, so they may have larger carbon footprint relative to their production, Rabenou said.

Rabenou noted the sometimes conflicting outcomes resulting from government policy, citing the program that supports ethanol production as a case in point. More than 40% of the US corn crop, which requires significant water, goes into ethanol production. The rest is used to raise cattle for meat consumption, which requires extensive pasturage and generates significant amounts of GHG. In view of the climate challenge and related food production issues, it鈥檚 worth asking if the US ethanol policy results in the best use of cropland and water.

One area investors should keep an eye on is the growing use of technology in agriculture and generally in collecting data on land use. Rabenou cited quickening technology innovation is one of the most important changes in agriculture and the food system. Ranganathan noted that technology has greatly increased available data on land use that can be useful to financial institutions and investors. She cited an example of an Indonesian bank that uses satellite data to mitigate the risks of financing transactions in agricultural land.
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