Why Care About Land Use?
Land Use Change
According to the World Wildlife Fund, 17% of the largest forest on Earth, the Amazon, has been destroyed, with almost all cleared land being used for some form of agriculture.
Land use change is one of the largest contributors to climate change on our planet. As we replace natural ecosystems with our agriculture systems, we both reduce the trees and other plants which absorb co2 from our atmosphere and increase livestock-based methane production.
Among the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, goal 13 is Climate Action. Taking climate action to mitigate climate change involves setting up pathways to sustainably reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
In order to address the U.N. Goal 13: Climate Action, we must first explore and better understand our state of land use change.
The Current Landscape
In order to feed a growing population, the world has dedicated more of its land resources to grazing pasture land to raise livestock used to feed ourselves. According to the data’s source, Our World in Data, grazing/pasture land means “land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops.”
A Closer Breakdown
These 5 regions have exceptionally large increases in dedicated pasture land. This is mostly due to rapidly growing populations, and/or the relative luxury to have ample available land for livestock rearing.
The Big Question
So what happens when we we add the most populous country in the world to these graphs?
India Case Study
Although India is the largest country in the world by population, they have significantly less land dedicated to pastures and grazing. A large part of this has to do with India’s nearly 80% Hindu population. In Hinduism, cows are considered sacred animals, and therefore there is considerably less demand for their meat. Lower demand for cattle means less pasture space needed to raise them.
India vs. Australia
These graphs highlight the differences in grazing use in India (a country that does not produce much beef) compared to Australia (a country that does produce extensive beef). It is clear that there is a correlation between beef production and required pasture land, but on the upcoming slides we will take this one step further.
India vs. Australia
This graph exemplifies how much more land is required to rear livestock than to grow food on farms. Even when all of India’s agricultural food production is factored in, India still use significantly less agricultural land than Australia because they have so much less dedicated pastureland.
India vs. Australia
Agricultural Land per Capita denotes how much land must be dedicated towards agricultural for every person in a country. This could be viewed as a country’s agricultural efficiency. However, it is important to note that food inequality must also be taken into account. Although India produces a high quantity of food, they have much higher hunger rates than Australia.
How Countries can reduce grazing land
An agricultural shift away from meat sources such as beef, lamb, and mutton would greatly reduce the land the countries must use to raise livestock. Food reliancy could shift to lower land-cost meats such as pig and poultry or to even more efficient plant based proteins. This in turn could reduce the effects of land use change, allowing for the restoration of natural ecosystems, all while mitigating climate change.
What Now?
Addressing the Issue
The global spike in grazing land use since 1600 has seen large portions of regions’ natural ecosystem be wiped out to raise livestock. However, as we have seen, humans have much more efficient options for producing food sources. With soy proteins like Tofu taking 80-90 times less land use than Beef, Lamb and Mutton.
In order to address land use changes’ contribution to global climate change, we must reconsider what we use to feed ourselves in order to minimize required land.
Data Sources
All data from this story is sourced from Our World in Data. OWID is an organization that uses a worldwide network of researchers who publish stories with the goal of making their insights on some of the biggest global issues, more easily digestible.
Click on the following links to learn more about each of the datasets: