For decades, environmental debates have been framed around a stark trade-off: economic growth lifts people out of poverty but comes at the expense of forests, wildlife, and climate stability. More people and richer diets mean more farmland and less nature.
However, a new study by an interdisciplinary research team led by researchers at the University of Minnesota suggests that this long-assumed conflict between development and conservation may not be inevitable.
Analyzing global trends in population growth, food demand, crop yields, and agricultural trade, the research team found that faster economic development in lower-income countries could reduce pressure to convert the world's natural ecosystems into farmland. Their findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Agriculture already dominates the planet's landscape. Croplands cover about 12%, and grazing lands cover about 25% of Earth's ice-free land surface, making agriculture the largest human use of land and the leading driver of habitat loss for terrestrial species. Agriculture also contributes substantially to global greenhouse gas emissions.
The study estimates that maintaining current trends would lead to a dramatic expansion of global croplands during the 21st century. These projections suggest that farmland could grow by more than one billion hectares by 2100—an increase that would threaten vast areas of remaining natural habitat.
Much of that expansion would occur in lower-income countries where populations are growing rapidly, and crop yields remain relatively low. But more rapid economic development in lower-income countries could change that trajectory. As incomes rise, countries typically undergo a "demographic transition" in which birth rates decline, and population growth slows. Economic development also tends to bring improvements in agricultural productivity through better technology, infrastructure, and research investment.
The study found:
- Continuing current trends in agricultural production and food consumption could result in a near doubling of cropland area in lower-income countries to the detriment of biodiversity and the climate.
- Economic development in lower-income countries could reduce future global cropland requirements due to slower population growth, improved crop yield, and higher volumes of global crop trade, which could more than offset rising per capita crop demand.
- Decreasing per capita crop demand in higher-income countries by eating healthier diets, reducing food waste, and reducing biofuel production could reduce cropland requirements, especially if combined with expanded agricultural trade.
- Combining accelerated economic development in lower-income countries with reduced crop demand in higher-income countries could dramatically shrink global cropland area by the year 2100.
Taken together, the findings suggest that policies promoting agricultural innovation, economic opportunity, and more efficient food systems could produce an unusual combination of outcomes: less poverty, less habitat destruction, and lower climate emissions.
"Accelerating economic development in lower-income countries can reduce poverty and, more surprisingly, also be good for nature," said Stephen Polasky, co-author of the study, Regents Professor and co-founder of NatCap TEEMs in the University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences. "Higher incomes are associated with lower population growth and increased crop yields, which can more than offset growth in per capita consumption."
"Economic growth is often viewed as working against conservation," said Craig Packer, co-author of the study and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences. "Faster development in poorer countries would not only improve the lives of millions of people but could substantially reduce the pressure to clear new land for agriculture."
The authors added that achieving accelerated economic development, increasing agricultural research and development spending, reducing crop demand in higher-income countries, and reducing trade barriers all require overcoming substantial obstacles.
Photo credit: Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer.