Taking actions to change the food system from supply through demand can prevent the need to cut down forests for food production, with enough existing cropland to produce biomass to supply feedstocks for other materials such as bioplastics or alternative concrete.
Is there enough potential cropland for future needs?
Most present-day croplands receive enough rain and are warm enough to have once supported forests of one kind or another.
More than 11 million square km (4.2 million square miles) of present-day croplands receive enough rain and are warm enough to have once supported forests of one kind or another.
"There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations," the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.
But researchers like Steffen Fritz, from the IIASA, are mulling over the future possibility of mapping cropland conditions in high enough resolution to provide detailed information to small-scale farmers too, who may be trying to shield themselves against unpredictability.
Over about the last 120 years, increases in woody plant cover have stored significant amounts of C (95.9 TgC), but not enough to compensate for losses from conversions to croplands and pastures (166.7 TgC), generating a regional net loss of 70.9 TgC.
LUC modelling in this case predicts slight domestic gains in both YFS and forest lands and an increase in international forest lands, which sequester enough carbon to offset the carbon emitted from cropland-pasture conversion.
By comparing scenarios and their impacts we can begin to identify the global pattern of cropland and irrigation development that is significant enough to meet future food needs but has less of an impact on ecosystem service and habitat provision.
In the first case, the available cropland area is just about sufficient to produce enough food, so bioenergy could in that case only be derived from residues and grazing areas, and the potential drops to 63.6 EJ y−1 (−39%).
