Global Environmental Change
Global Environmental Change
5 years ago

Total global agricultural land footprint associated with UK food supply 1986–2011

Over the coming decades the global demand for food, and especially for animal products is projected to increase. At the same time, competition for agricultural land is projected to intensify due to a wide range of drivers, including a growing world population, changes in food consumption patterns and bioenergy production. It is therefore vital to understand the relationship between global agricultural land use and the consumption of food. Here we use the United Kingdom as an example to show the agricultural land footprint of a highly developed country over the period 1986–2011. Our analysis shows that the total land footprint of the UK has decreased over time from 25,939kha in 1987 (3-year mean) to 23,723kha in 2010 (3-year mean), due to a lower grassland footprint resulting from lower ruminant meat supply. Cropland use has increased slightly from around 8400kha in 1987 to about 8800kha in 2010, but has decreased slightly on a per-capita basis as the UK’s population increased over time. Our analysis shows that 85% of the UK’s total land footprint is associated with meat and dairy production, but only 48% of total protein and 32% of total calories derive from livestock products. Our results suggest that, if countries reduce their ruminant product consumption, land could be freed up for other uses, including bio-energy production, forest regrowth, and biodiversity conservation.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0959378017301176

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.