Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing

Expecting that more and richer people will demand more from the land, cultivating wider fields, logging more forests, and pressing Nature, comes naturally. The past half-century of disciplined and dematerializing demand and more intense and efficient land use encourage a rational hope that humanity’s pressure will not overwhelm Nature. Beginning with the examples of crops in the large and fast-developing countries of India and China as well as the United States, we examine the recent half-century. We also look back over the past 150 years when regions like Europe and the United States became the maiden beneficiaries of chemical, biological, and mechanical innovations in agriculture from the Industrial Revolution. Organizing our analysis with the ImPACT identity, we examine the elements contributing to the use of land for crop production, including population, affluence, diet, and the performance of agricultural producers. India and China In 1960 the population of India was about 450 million. In 1961, Indian affluence, as measured by GDP, equaled about 65 billion recent US dollars (World Bank 2012). The average Indian consumed 2,030 food calories (kilocalories) per day, a level that approaches minimum calorie thresholds for hunger. 1 Indian farmers tilled 161 million hectares (MHa) of land to grow crops, while the country imported a net 4 million to 10 million tons 2 a year of cereal grains, over 6 percent of its demand on average during the decade of the 1960s (Food and Agriculture Organization FAO 2012). In the United States in 1960, youngsters were admonished to finish their peas and be grateful that theirs was not the lot of the hungry children in India.