posts: 3016

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id	title	slug	type	status	content	archieml	archieml_update_statistics	published_at	updated_at	gdocSuccessorId	authors	excerpt	created_at_in_wordpress	updated_at_in_wordpress	featured_image	formattingOptions	markdown	wpApiSnapshot
3016	Land Use	land-use	page	publish	<!-- wp:html --> <div class="blog-info">First published in September 2019.</div> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The focus of this entry is land use for agriculture. But we are also studying other uses of land, including land required for human settlement. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Agriculture is a major use of land. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. The extensive land use has a major impact on the earth's environment as it reduces wilderness and threatens biodiversity.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Reducing the consumption of resource-intensive products and increasing the productivity of land makes it possible to produce food with much smaller inputs and reducing the impact on the environment.<br></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Breakdown of global land use today</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 27387 --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For much of human history, most of the world’s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term">only 4 million</a> square kilometers – less than 4% of the world’s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming.<br><br>In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land – deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}‘Barren land’ refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call ‘habitable land’. <strong>Half</strong> of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home">sourced from</a> the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth’s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as ‘natural’ or ‘semi-natural’ land.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x">Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000</a>. <em>Global Ecology and Biogeography</em>, <em>19</em>(5), 589-606.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The major uncertainties – and explanation for discrepancies – in these assessments is the allocation of ‘rangelands’: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% – a much smaller share than many suspect – is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world’s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987">Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers</a>. <em>Science</em>, 360(6392), 987-992.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS">global statistics</a> on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world’s calories.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world’s protein.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref}<br><br>The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity’s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts – both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields">Crop yields</a> have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production">need only 30%</a> of the farmland.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:image {"id":29757,"sizeSlug":"large"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-800x511.png" alt="" class="wp-image-29757"/></figure> <!-- /wp:image --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>How the world's land is used: total area sizes by type of use & cover</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above – on the breakdown of global land use & cover – by scale on a global map.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We see that:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>global land allocated to livestock - either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined);</li><li>cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand;</li><li>forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia;</li><li>global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia</li><li>total build-up land (villages, towns, cities & infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya;</li><li>shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards;</li><li>barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe;</li><li>glaciers (permanent ice & snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica & Greenland combined.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":14270,"linkDestination":"custom"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png"><img src="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png" alt="" class="wp-image-14270"/></a></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>How has global land use changed over the long-term?</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns --> <div class="wp-block-columns"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the "change country/region" option.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Agricultural land use over the long-run</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Total agricultural land use</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Cropland use</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <figure><iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe></figure> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Grazing land use</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>How much land do countries use for agriculture?</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It's important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If we view the map in "chart" mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world's regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Arable agriculture (cropland)</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however;  countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture)</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Cropland use per person</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Cropland per person over the long-term</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Cropland use per person in the near-term</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Global population has <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/">more than doubled</a> over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world's regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America-- more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia-- both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Agricultural land use per person</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Agricultural land per person over the long-term</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Agricultural land per person over the near-term</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person - now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia.  </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Land use by crop</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961-- an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Land use by food type</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product--this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the "land footprint") to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it's important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton.  </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Arable land needed per unit of crop production</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 27228 --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting 'add country' on the chart.<br><br>The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail <a href="http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) – Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221–242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract">here</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p> The authors write: <em>'A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature.<br>Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.'</em></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <figure><iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin"></iframe></figure> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Definitions</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:columns {"className":"is-style-sticky-right"} --> <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Land use categories</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of "arable land" versus "agricultural land".</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:image {"id":13005,"linkDestination":"custom"} --> <figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png"><img src="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png" alt="" class="wp-image-13005"/></a></figure> <!-- /wp:image --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:columns --> <div class="wp-block-columns"><!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Definitions of agricultural land use</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as 'agricultural area' by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world's agricultural area.{ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) – Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF">here</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What do these words mean?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The <strong>agricultural area</strong> is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The FAO definition for <strong>arable land</strong> is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for “Arable land” are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online <a href="http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx">here</a>. {/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The same source defines <strong>permanent crops </strong>as follows: 'Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for <em>permanent meadows and pastures </em>is 'land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).'</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The FAO definition for <strong>fallow land</strong> is 'the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.'</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --> <!-- wp:column --> <div class="wp-block-column"><!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --></div> <!-- /wp:column --></div> <!-- /wp:columns --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Data Sources</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat)</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use – the full list is <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data">here</a>.</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> Global – by country and world region.</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> Since 1961.</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> Available for download <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list -->	{ "id": "wp-3016", "slug": "land-use", "content": { "toc": [], "body": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "First published in September 2019.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The focus of this entry is land use for agriculture. But we are also studying other uses of land, including land required for human settlement. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Agriculture is a major use of land. Half of the world\u2019s habitable land is used for agriculture. The extensive land use has a major impact on the earth's environment as it reduces wilderness and threatens biodiversity.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Reducing the consumption of resource-intensive products and increasing the productivity of land makes it possible to produce food with much smaller inputs and reducing the impact on the environment.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "url": "#all-charts", "children": [ { "text": "See all interactive charts on land use \u2193", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Breakdown of global land use today", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For much of human history, most of the world\u2019s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term", "children": [ { "text": "only 4 million", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " square kilometers \u2013 less than 4% of the world\u2019s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land \u2013 deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}\u2018Barren land\u2019 refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call \u2018habitable land\u2019. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Half", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home", "children": [ { "text": "sourced from", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth\u2019s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as \u2018natural\u2019 or \u2018semi-natural\u2019 land.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x", "children": [ { "text": "Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Global Ecology and Biogeography", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "19", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "(5), 589-606.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The major uncertainties \u2013 and explanation for discrepancies \u2013 in these assessments is the allocation of \u2018rangelands\u2019: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% \u2013 a much smaller share than many suspect \u2013 is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world\u2019s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world\u2019s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987", "children": [ { "text": "Reducing food\u2019s environmental impacts through producers and consumers", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", 360(6392), 987-992.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS", "children": [ { "text": "global statistics", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world\u2019s calories.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world\u2019s protein.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity\u2019s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts \u2013 both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields", "children": [ { "text": "Crop yields", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production", "children": [ { "text": "need only 30%", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " of the farmland.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "Global-land-use-graphic.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "How the world's land is used: total area sizes by type of use & cover", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above \u2013 on the breakdown of global land use & cover \u2013 by scale on a global map.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We see that:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "global land allocated to livestock - either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined);", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "total build-up land (villages, towns, cities & infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "glaciers (permanent ice & snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica & Greenland combined.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "How has global land use changed over the long-term?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the \"change country/region\" option.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Agricultural land use over the long-run", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Total agricultural land use", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cropland use", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Grazing land use", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "How much land do countries use for agriculture?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It's important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If we view the map in \"chart\" mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world's regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Arable agriculture (cropland)", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however; \u00a0countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture)", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cropland use per person", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cropland per person over the long-term", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cropland use per person in the near-term", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Global population has ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/", "children": [ { "text": "more than doubled", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world's regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America-- more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia-- both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Agricultural land use per person", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Agricultural land per person over the long-term", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Agricultural land per person over the near-term", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person - now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia. \u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Land use by crop", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961-- an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Land use by food type", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product--this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the \"land footprint\") to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it's important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton. \u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Arable land needed per unit of crop production", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting 'add country' on the chart.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) \u2013\u00a0Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221\u2013242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": " The authors write: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "'A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "spanType": "span-newline" }, { "text": "Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.'", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Definitions", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Land use categories", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of \"arable land\" versus \"agricultural land\".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "alt": "", "size": "wide", "type": "image", "filename": "Land-use-classification.png", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Definitions of agricultural land use", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as 'agricultural area' by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world's agricultural area.{ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) \u2013 Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "What do these words mean?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "agricultural area", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The FAO definition for ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "arable land", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for \u201cArable land\u201d are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". {/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The same source defines ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "permanent crops ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "as follows: 'Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "permanent meadows and pastures ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "is 'land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).'", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The FAO definition for ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "fallow land", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": " is 'the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.'", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Data Sources", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat)", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Data:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "\u00a0Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use \u2013 the full list is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Geographical coverage:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "\u00a0Global \u2013 by country and world region.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Time span:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "\u00a0Since 1961.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "Available at:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "\u00a0Available for download ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "top": [], "type": "all-charts", "heading": "Interactive charts on land use", "parseErrors": [] } ], "type": "linear-topic-page", "title": "Land Use", "authors": [ "Hannah Ritchie", "Max Roser" ], "excerpt": "How is humanity using the Earth\u2019s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?", "dateline": "November 13, 2013", "subtitle": "How is humanity using the Earth\u2019s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?", "sticky-nav": [], "sidebar-toc": true, "featured-image": "World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png" }, "createdAt": "2013-11-13T17:03:27.000Z", "published": false, "updatedAt": "2020-12-02T17:40:52.000Z", "revisionId": null, "publishedAt": "2013-11-13T17:03:27.000Z", "relatedCharts": [ { "slug": "total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term", "title": "Agricultural area over the long-term", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "agricultural-area-per-capita", "title": "Agricultural land per capita", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "agricultural-land", "title": "Agricultural land use", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "total-agricultural-land-use-per-person", "title": "Agricultural land use per person", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "arable-land-pin", "title": "Arable land needed to produce a fixed quantity of crops", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "arable-land-use-per-person", "title": "Arable land use per person", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "area-land-needed-to-global-oil", "title": "Area of land needed to meet global vegetable oil demand", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "breakdown-habitable-land", "title": "Breakdown of habitable land area", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "index-of-cereal-production-yield-and-land-use", "title": "Change in cereal production, yield, land use and population", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "global-warming-land", "title": "Contribution to global mean surface temperature rise from agriculture and land use", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "coverage-of-wetlands", "title": "Coverage of wetlands", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "cropland-pasture-per-person", "title": "Cropland and pasture per person", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "cropland-area", "title": "Cropland area", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "cropland-use-over-the-long-term", "title": "Cropland extent over the long-term", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term", "title": "Cropland per person over the long-term", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "dietary-land-use-vs-gdp-per-capita", "title": "Dietary land use vs. GDP per capita", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "extent-of-extensive-agriculture", "title": "Extent of extensive agriculture", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "extent-of-foraging", "title": "Extent of foraging, hunting and gathering", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "extent-of-intensive-agriculture", "title": "Extent of intensive agriculture", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "extent-of-pastoralism", "title": "Extent of pastoralism", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "fao-projections-of-arable-land-to-2050", "title": "FAO projections of arable land", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type", "title": "Global agricultural land use by major crop type", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "global-cropland", "title": "Global cropland is still increasing", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "cereal-land-spared", "title": "Global land spared as a result of cereal yield improvements", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "global-land-use-since-10000bc", "title": "Global land use since 10,000 BCE", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term", "title": "Grazing land use over the long-term", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "global-peak-agricultural-land", "title": "Has the world passed peak agricultural land?", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-sparing-by-crop", "title": "How much cropland has the world spared due to increases in crop yields?", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "global-pasture", "title": "How much global land is used as pasture for livestock?", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "agriculture-more-less-land", "title": "Is agricultural land expanding? Change over the prior decade", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-area-hectares", "title": "Land area in hectares", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-area-km", "title": "Land area in square kilometres", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-area-per-crop-type", "title": "Land area per crop type", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-use", "title": "Land use", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-use-palm-oil", "title": "Land use for palm oil production", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-use-for-vegetable-oil-crops", "title": "Land use for vegetable oil crops", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "land-use-kcal-poore", "title": "Land use of foods per 1000 kilocalories", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-use-over-the-long-term", "title": "Land use over the long-term", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-use-protein-poore", "title": "Land use per 100 grams of protein", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-use-per-kg-poore", "title": "Land use per kilogram of food product", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 2 }, { "slug": "land-use-vs-yield-change-in-cereal-production", "title": "Land use vs. yield change in cereal production", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "land-use-agriculture-longterm", "title": "Land used for agriculture", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "organic-agricultural-area", "title": "Organic agricultural area", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "projections-for-global-peak-agricultural-land", "title": "Projections for global peak agricultural land", "variantName": null, "keyChartLevel": 0 }, { "slug": "share-of-adults-who-perceive-their-rights-to-land-as-secure", "title": "Share of adults who perceive their rights to land as secure", "variantName": null, 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55 }, "htmlTagCounts": { "p": 55, "h2": 10, "h3": 9, "h4": 6, "ul": 2, "div": 49, "figure": 5, "iframe": 14 } }	2013-11-13 17:03:27	2024-03-19 18:38:03		[ "Hannah Ritchie", "Max Roser" ]	How is humanity using the Earth’s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?	2013-11-13 17:03:27	2020-12-02 17:40:52	https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png	{}	First published in September 2019. The focus of this entry is land use for agriculture. But we are also studying other uses of land, including land required for human settlement. Agriculture is a major use of land. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. The extensive land use has a major impact on the earth's environment as it reduces wilderness and threatens biodiversity. Reducing the consumption of resource-intensive products and increasing the productivity of land makes it possible to produce food with much smaller inputs and reducing the impact on the environment. [See all interactive charts on land use ↓](#all-charts) --- # Breakdown of global land use today --- ### Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture For much of human history, most of the world’s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land. If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that [only 4 million](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term) square kilometers – less than 4% of the world’s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming. In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land – deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}‘Barren land’ refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call ‘habitable land’. Half of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is [sourced from](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home) the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth’s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as ‘natural’ or ‘semi-natural’ land. Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). [Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x). _Global Ecology and Biogeography_, _19_(5), 589-606. The major uncertainties – and explanation for discrepancies – in these assessments is the allocation of ‘rangelands’: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref} This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% – a much smaller share than many suspect – is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure. There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world’s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). [Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987). _Science_, 360(6392), 987-992. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide [global statistics](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS) on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world’s calories. The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world’s protein. The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref} The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity’s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts – both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. [Crop yields](https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields) have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we [need only 30%](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production) of the farmland. <Image filename="Global-land-use-graphic.png" alt=""/> With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats. ## How the world's land is used: total area sizes by type of use & cover Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above – on the breakdown of global land use & cover – by scale on a global map. Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only. We see that: * global land allocated to livestock - either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined); * cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand; * forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia; * global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia * total build-up land (villages, towns, cities & infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya; * shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards; * barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe; * glaciers (permanent ice & snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica & Greenland combined. <Image filename="World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png" alt=""/> --- # How has global land use changed over the long-term? --- The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the "change country/region" option. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term"/> --- # Agricultural land use over the long-run --- ## Total agricultural land use This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term"/> ## Cropland use This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term"/> ## Grazing land use This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term"/> --- # How much land do countries use for agriculture? --- We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture. There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It's important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section. If we view the map in "chart" mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world's regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture"/> ## Arable agriculture (cropland) There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area). For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however; countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture"/> ## Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture) For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area. As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014"/> --- # Cropland use per person --- ### Cropland per person over the long-term The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term"/> ### Cropland use per person in the near-term Global population has [more than doubled](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/) over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential. In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world's regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America-- more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia-- both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person"/> --- # Agricultural land use per person --- ### Agricultural land per person over the long-term The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person"/> ### Agricultural land per person over the near-term If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961. Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person - now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita"/> --- # Land use by crop --- In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land. The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961-- an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type"/> --- # Land use by food type --- The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product--this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the "land footprint") to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types. At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it's important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type"/> ## Arable land needed per unit of crop production This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting 'add country' on the chart. The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail [here](http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf). The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) – Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221–242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online [here](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract).{/ref} The authors write: _'A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature. Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.'_ <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin"/> --- # Definitions --- ## Land use categories The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of "arable land" versus "agricultural land". To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources. <Image filename="Land-use-classification.png" alt=""/> ## Definitions of agricultural land use The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as 'agricultural area' by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area). The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world's agricultural area.{ref} These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) – Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online [here](http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF). For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref} What do these words mean? The agricultural area is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures. The FAO definition for arable land is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for “Arable land” are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online [here](http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx). {/ref} The same source defines permanent crops as follows: 'Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for _permanent meadows and pastures _is 'land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).' The FAO definition for fallow land is 'the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.' --- # Data Sources --- ### FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat) * Data: Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use – the full list is [here](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data). * Geographical coverage: Global – by country and world region. * Time span: Since 1961. * Available at: Available for download [here](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data). <AllCharts heading="Interactive charts on land use"/>	{ "id": 3016, "date": "2013-11-13T17:03:27", "guid": { "rendered": "http://ourworldindata.org/?page_id=3016" }, "link": "https://owid.cloud/land-use", "meta": { "owid_publication_context_meta_field": [], "owid_key_performance_indicators_meta_field": { "raw": "* 50% of the world\u2019s habitable land is used for agriculture", "rendered": "<ul>\n<li><strong>50%</strong> of the world\u2019s habitable land is used for agriculture</li>\n</ul>\n" } }, "slug": "land-use", "tags": [], "type": "page", "title": { "rendered": "Land Use" }, "_links": { "self": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/3016" } ], "about": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/types/page" } ], "author": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/users/17", "embeddable": true } ], "curies": [ { "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}", "name": "wp", "templated": true } ], "replies": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=3016", "embeddable": true } ], "wp:term": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=3016", "taxonomy": "category", "embeddable": true }, { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=3016", "taxonomy": "post_tag", "embeddable": true } ], "collection": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages" } ], "wp:attachment": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=3016" } ], "version-history": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/3016/revisions", "count": 39 } ], "wp:featuredmedia": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media/14270", "embeddable": true } ], "predecessor-version": [ { "id": 38014, "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/3016/revisions/38014" } ] }, "author": 17, "parent": 0, "status": "publish", "content": { "rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">First published in September 2019.</div>\n\n\n\n<p>The focus of this entry is land use for agriculture. But we are also studying other uses of land, including land required for human settlement. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Agriculture is a major use of land. Half of the world\u2019s habitable land is used for agriculture. The extensive land use has a major impact on the earth’s environment as it reduces wilderness and threatens biodiversity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reducing the consumption of resource-intensive products and increasing the productivity of land makes it possible to produce food with much smaller inputs and reducing the impact on the environment.<br></p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Breakdown of global land use today</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>For much of human history, most of the world\u2019s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term\">only 4 million</a> square kilometers \u2013 less than 4% of the world\u2019s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming.<br><br>In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land \u2013 deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}\u2018Barren land\u2019 refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call \u2018habitable land\u2019. <strong>Half</strong> of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home\">sourced from</a> the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth\u2019s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as \u2018natural\u2019 or \u2018semi-natural\u2019 land.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). <a href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x\">Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000</a>. <em>Global Ecology and Biogeography</em>, <em>19</em>(5), 589-606.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The major uncertainties \u2013 and explanation for discrepancies \u2013 in these assessments is the allocation of \u2018rangelands\u2019: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% \u2013 a much smaller share than many suspect \u2013 is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world\u2019s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world\u2019s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). <a href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987\">Reducing food\u2019s environmental impacts through producers and consumers</a>. <em>Science</em>, 360(6392), 987-992.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS\">global statistics</a> on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world\u2019s calories.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world\u2019s protein.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref}<br><br>The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity\u2019s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts \u2013 both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields\">Crop yields</a> have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production\">need only 30%</a> of the farmland.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"511\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-800x511.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29757\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-800x511.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-400x255.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-150x96.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-768x490.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-1536x980.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-2048x1307.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>How the world’s land is used: total area sizes by type of use & cover</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above \u2013 on the breakdown of global land use & cover \u2013 by scale on a global map.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We see that:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>global land allocated to livestock – either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined);</li><li>cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand;</li><li>forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia;</li><li>global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia</li><li>total build-up land (villages, towns, cities & infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya;</li><li>shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards;</li><li>barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe;</li><li>glaciers (permanent ice & snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica & Greenland combined.</li></ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"6251\" height=\"4695\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14270\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png 6251w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-150x113.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-400x300.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-768x577.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-732x550.png 732w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 6251px) 100vw, 6251px\" /></a></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>How has global land use changed over the long-term?</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the “change country/region” option.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Agricultural land use over the long-run</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Total agricultural land use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Cropland use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Grazing land use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>How much land do countries use for agriculture?</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It’s important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we view the map in “chart” mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world’s regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining. </p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Arable agriculture (cropland)</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however;  countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture)</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cropland use per person</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Cropland per person over the long-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Cropland use per person in the near-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Global population has <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/\">more than doubled</a> over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world’s regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America– more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia– both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Agricultural land use per person</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Agricultural land per person over the long-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Agricultural land per person over the near-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person – now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia.  </p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Land use by crop</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961– an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Land use by food type</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product–this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the “land footprint”) to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it’s important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton.  </p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>Arable land needed per unit of crop production</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting ‘add country’ on the chart.<br><br>The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail <a href=\"http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) \u2013 Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221\u2013242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online <a href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p> The authors write: <em>‘A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature.<br>Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.’</em></p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin\"></iframe></figure>\n\n\n\n<h2>Definitions</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Land use categories</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of “arable land” versus “agricultural land”.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2014\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13005\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png 3000w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-150x101.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-400x269.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-768x516.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-750x504.png 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px\" /></a></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Definitions of agricultural land use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as ‘agricultural area’ by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world’s agricultural area.{ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) \u2013 Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do these words mean?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>agricultural area</strong> is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FAO definition for <strong>arable land</strong> is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for \u201cArable land\u201d are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online <a href=\"http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx\">here</a>. {/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same source defines <strong>permanent crops </strong>as follows: ‘Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for <em>permanent meadows and pastures </em>is ‘land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).’</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FAO definition for <strong>fallow land</strong> is ‘the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.’</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p></p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Data Sources</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat)</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use \u2013 the full list is <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data\">here</a>.</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> Global \u2013 by country and world region.</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> Since 1961.</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> Available for download <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here</a>.</li></ul>\n", "protected": false }, "excerpt": { "rendered": "How is humanity using the Earth\u2019s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?", "protected": false }, "date_gmt": "2013-11-13T17:03:27", "modified": "2020-12-02T17:40:52", "template": "", "categories": [ 49, 188, 47, 184 ], "menu_order": 245, "ping_status": "closed", "authors_name": [ "Hannah Ritchie", "Max Roser" ], "modified_gmt": "2020-12-02T17:40:52", "comment_status": "open", "featured_media": 14270, "featured_media_paths": { "thumbnail": "/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-150x113.png", "medium_large": "/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-768x577.png" } }

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3016

Land Use

land-use

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<div class="blog-info">First published in September 2019.</div>   <p>The focus of this entry is land use for agriculture. But we are also studying other uses of land, including land required for human settlement. </p>   <p>Agriculture is a major use of land. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. The extensive land use has a major impact on the earth's environment as it reduces wilderness and threatens biodiversity.</p>   <p>Reducing the consumption of resource-intensive products and increasing the productivity of land makes it possible to produce food with much smaller inputs and reducing the impact on the environment.<br></p>   <h2>Breakdown of global land use today</h2>   <h4>Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture</h4>    <p>For much of human history, most of the world’s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land.</p>   <p>If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term">only 4 million</a> square kilometers – less than 4% of the world’s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming.<br><br>In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land – deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}‘Barren land’ refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call ‘habitable land’. <strong>Half</strong> of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home">sourced from</a> the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth’s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as ‘natural’ or ‘semi-natural’ land.</p>   <p>Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x">Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000</a>. <em>Global Ecology and Biogeography</em>, <em>19</em>(5), 589-606.</p>   <p>The major uncertainties – and explanation for discrepancies – in these assessments is the allocation of ‘rangelands’: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref}</p>   <p>This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% – a much smaller share than many suspect – is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure. </p>   <p>There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world’s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987">Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers</a>. <em>Science</em>, 360(6392), 987-992.</p>   <p>The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS">global statistics</a> on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. </p>   <p>In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world’s calories.</p>   <p>The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world’s protein.</p>   <p>The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref}<br><br>The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity’s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts – both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields">Crop yields</a> have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production">need only 30%</a> of the farmland.</p>   <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-800x511.png" alt="" class="wp-image-29757"/></figure>   <p>With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats.</p>   <h3>How the world's land is used: total area sizes by type of use & cover</h3>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above – on the breakdown of global land use & cover – by scale on a global map.</p>   <p>Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only.</p>   <p>We see that:</p>   <ul><li>global land allocated to livestock - either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined);</li><li>cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand;</li><li>forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia;</li><li>global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia</li><li>total build-up land (villages, towns, cities & infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya;</li><li>shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards;</li><li>barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe;</li><li>glaciers (permanent ice & snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica & Greenland combined.</li></ul> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png"><img src="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png" alt="" class="wp-image-14270"/></a></figure> </div> </div>   <h2>How has global land use changed over the long-term?</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the "change country/region" option.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <h2>Agricultural land use over the long-run</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h3>Total agricultural land use</h3>   <p>This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h3>Cropland use</h3>   <p>This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure><iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe></figure> </div> </div>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h3>Grazing land use</h3>   <p>This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <h2>How much land do countries use for agriculture?</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture.</p>   <p>There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It's important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section.</p>   <p>If we view the map in "chart" mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world's regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining. </p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h3>Arable agriculture (cropland)</h3>   <p>There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area).</p>   <p>For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however;  countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h3>Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture)</h3>   <p>For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area.</p>   <p>As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <h2>Cropland use per person</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h4>Cropland per person over the long-term</h4>   <p>The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <p></p> </div> </div>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h4>Cropland use per person in the near-term</h4>   <p>Global population has <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/">more than doubled</a> over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential.</p>   <p>In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world's regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America-- more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia-- both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <h2>Agricultural land use per person</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h4>Agricultural land per person over the long-term</h4>   <p>The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h4>Agricultural land per person over the near-term</h4>   <p>If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961.</p>   <p>Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person - now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia.  </p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <h2>Land use by crop</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land.</p>   <p>The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961-- an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <h2>Land use by food type</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <p>The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product--this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the "land footprint") to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types.</p>   <p>At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it's important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton.  </p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type" width="300" height="150"></iframe> </div> </div>   <h3>Arable land needed per unit of crop production</h3>    <p>This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. </p>   <p>This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting 'add country' on the chart.<br><br>The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail <a href="http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf">here</a>.</p>   <p>The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) – Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221–242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract">here</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p> The authors write: <em>'A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature.<br>Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.'</em></p>   <figure><iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin"></iframe></figure>   <h2>Definitions</h2>   <div class="wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h3>Land use categories</h3>   <p>The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of "arable land" versus "agricultural land".</p>   <p>To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources.</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png"><img src="https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png" alt="" class="wp-image-13005"/></a></figure> </div> </div>   <div class="wp-block-columns"> <div class="wp-block-column"> <h3>Definitions of agricultural land use</h3>   <p>The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as 'agricultural area' by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area).</p>   <p>The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world's agricultural area.{ref}</p>   <p>These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) – Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF">here</a>.</p>   <p>For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref}</p>   <p>What do these words mean?</p>   <p>The <strong>agricultural area</strong> is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures.</p>   <p>The FAO definition for <strong>arable land</strong> is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for “Arable land” are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online <a href="http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx">here</a>. {/ref}</p>   <p>The same source defines <strong>permanent crops </strong>as follows: 'Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for <em>permanent meadows and pastures </em>is 'land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).'</p>   <p>The FAO definition for <strong>fallow land</strong> is 'the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.'</p> </div>   <div class="wp-block-column"> <p></p> </div> </div>   <h2>Data Sources</h2>   <h4>FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat)</h4>   <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use – the full list is <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data">here</a>.</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> Global – by country and world region.</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> Since 1961.</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> Available for download <a href="http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>.</li></ul>

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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Breakdown of global land use today",
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                "type": "heading",
                "level": 1,
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture",
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                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 3,
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "For much of human history, most of the world\u2019s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land.",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "only 4 million",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " square kilometers \u2013 less than 4% of the world\u2019s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land \u2013 deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}\u2018Barren land\u2019 refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call \u2018habitable land\u2019. ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Half",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "sourced from",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth\u2019s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as \u2018natural\u2019 or \u2018semi-natural\u2019 land.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Global Ecology and Biogeography",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ", ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "19",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "(5), 589-606.",
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                    }
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The major uncertainties \u2013 and explanation for discrepancies \u2013 in these assessments is the allocation of \u2018rangelands\u2019: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref}",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% \u2013 a much smaller share than many suspect \u2013 is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure.\u00a0",
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                        "text": "There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world\u2019s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world\u2019s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Reducing food\u2019s environmental impacts through producers and consumers",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ". ",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Science",
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                            }
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                    {
                        "text": ", 360(6392), 987-992.",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide ",
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                    {
                        "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "global statistics",
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                            }
                        ],
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                    {
                        "text": " on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. ",
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                    {
                        "text": "In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world\u2019s calories.",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world\u2019s protein.",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref}",
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                    },
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                        "spanType": "span-newline"
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                    {
                        "text": "The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity\u2019s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts \u2013 both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Crop yields",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": " have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "need only 30%",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        ],
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                    {
                        "text": " of the farmland.",
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                ],
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "Global-land-use-graphic.png",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats.",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "How the world's land is used: total area sizes by type of use & cover",
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                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above \u2013 on the breakdown of global land use & cover \u2013 by scale on a global map.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only.",
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                        "text": "We see that:",
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                                "text": "global land allocated to livestock - either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined);",
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                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand;",
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                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia;",
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                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia",
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                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "total build-up land (villages, towns, cities & infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya;",
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                    {
                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards;",
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                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe;",
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "text": "glaciers (permanent ice & snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica & Greenland combined.",
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            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png",
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "How has global land use changed over the long-term?",
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the \"change country/region\" option.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term",
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Agricultural land use over the long-run",
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                        "text": "Total agricultural land use",
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                        "text": "This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cropland use",
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                        "text": "This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Grazing land use",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term",
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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            {
                "text": [
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                        "text": "How much land do countries use for agriculture?",
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                "type": "heading",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture.",
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                        "text": "There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It's important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section.",
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                        "text": "If we view the map in \"chart\" mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world's regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining.\u00a0",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Arable agriculture (cropland)",
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                    {
                        "text": "There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area).",
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                        "text": "For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however; \u00a0countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture)",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area.",
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                        "text": "As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Cropland use per person",
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                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 1,
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cropland per person over the long-term",
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                "type": "heading",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term",
                "type": "chart",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Cropland use per person in the near-term",
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                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 3,
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Global population has ",
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "more than doubled",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world's regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America-- more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia-- both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person",
                "type": "chart",
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Agricultural land use per person",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                "type": "heading",
                "level": 1,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Agricultural land per person over the long-term",
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                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 3,
                "parseErrors": []
            },
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person",
                "type": "chart",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Agricultural land per person over the near-term",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 3,
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961.",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person - now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia. \u00a0",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                ],
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita",
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Land use by crop",
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                "type": "heading",
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            },
            {
                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land.",
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                ],
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961-- an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area.",
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                ],
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            },
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type",
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Land use by food type",
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                ],
                "type": "heading",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product--this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the \"land footprint\") to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types.",
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                ],
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                        "text": "At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it's important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton. \u00a0",
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                    }
                ],
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            },
            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type",
                "type": "chart",
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Arable land needed per unit of crop production",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
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            },
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "parseErrors": []
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting 'add country' on the chart.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "spanType": "span-newline"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "here",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                ],
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) \u2013\u00a0Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221\u2013242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "here",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
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                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref}",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": " The authors write: ",
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "'A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "spanType": "span-newline"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.'",
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                        ],
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                ],
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            },
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Definitions",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 1,
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            },
            {
                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Land use categories",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of \"arable land\" versus \"agricultural land\".",
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                ],
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources.",
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                ],
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            },
            {
                "alt": "",
                "size": "wide",
                "type": "image",
                "filename": "Land-use-classification.png",
                "parseErrors": []
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Definitions of agricultural land use",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
                "type": "heading",
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as 'agricultural area' by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area).",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world's agricultural area.{ref}",
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                    }
                ],
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            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) \u2013 Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "here",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                ],
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            },
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref}",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "What do these words mean?",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "agricultural area",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures.",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                    }
                ],
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            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The FAO definition for ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "arable land",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
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                    },
                    {
                        "text": " is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for \u201cArable land\u201d are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online ",
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                    {
                        "url": "http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "here",
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                        "text": ". {/ref}",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The same source defines ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "permanent crops ",
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                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": "as follows: 'Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for ",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "permanent meadows and pastures ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "text": "is 'land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).'",
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                ],
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The FAO definition for ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "fallow land",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-bold"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " is 'the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.'",
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                ],
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Data Sources",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat)",
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                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "Data:",
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                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "\u00a0Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use \u2013 the full list is ",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            },
                            {
                                "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "here",
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                                ],
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                            {
                                "text": ".",
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                        ],
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                        "type": "text",
                        "value": [
                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Geographical coverage:",
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                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "\u00a0Global \u2013 by country and world region.",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
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                                "children": [
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                                        "text": "Time span:",
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                            {
                                "text": "\u00a0Since 1961.",
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                        "type": "text",
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                            {
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "Available at:",
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                                    }
                                ],
                                "spanType": "span-bold"
                            },
                            {
                                "text": "\u00a0Available for download ",
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                            },
                            {
                                "url": "http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "here",
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                                "text": ".",
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                ],
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            },
            {
                "top": [],
                "type": "all-charts",
                "heading": "Interactive charts on land use",
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            }
        ],
        "type": "linear-topic-page",
        "title": "Land Use",
        "authors": [
            "Hannah Ritchie",
            "Max Roser"
        ],
        "excerpt": "How is humanity using the Earth\u2019s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?",
        "dateline": "November 13, 2013",
        "subtitle": "How is humanity using the Earth\u2019s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?",
        "sticky-nav": [],
        "sidebar-toc": true,
        "featured-image": "World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png"
    },
    "createdAt": "2013-11-13T17:03:27.000Z",
    "published": false,
    "updatedAt": "2020-12-02T17:40:52.000Z",
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    "publishedAt": "2013-11-13T17:03:27.000Z",
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            "slug": "total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term",
            "title": "Agricultural area over the long-term",
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        },
        {
            "slug": "agricultural-area-per-capita",
            "title": "Agricultural land per capita",
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        },
        {
            "slug": "agricultural-land",
            "title": "Agricultural land use",
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        {
            "slug": "total-agricultural-land-use-per-person",
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        {
            "slug": "arable-land-pin",
            "title": "Arable land needed to produce a fixed quantity of crops",
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        },
        {
            "slug": "arable-land-use-per-person",
            "title": "Arable land use per person",
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        {
            "slug": "area-land-needed-to-global-oil",
            "title": "Area of land needed to meet global vegetable oil demand",
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            "keyChartLevel": 2
        },
        {
            "slug": "breakdown-habitable-land",
            "title": "Breakdown of habitable land area",
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        },
        {
            "slug": "index-of-cereal-production-yield-and-land-use",
            "title": "Change in cereal production, yield, land use and population",
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            "keyChartLevel": 2
        },
        {
            "slug": "global-warming-land",
            "title": "Contribution to global mean surface temperature rise from agriculture and land use",
            "variantName": null,
            "keyChartLevel": 0
        },
        {
            "slug": "coverage-of-wetlands",
            "title": "Coverage of wetlands",
            "variantName": null,
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        },
        {
            "slug": "cropland-pasture-per-person",
            "title": "Cropland and pasture per person",
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        },
        {
            "slug": "cropland-area",
            "title": "Cropland area",
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        {
            "slug": "cropland-use-over-the-long-term",
            "title": "Cropland extent over the long-term",
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            "keyChartLevel": 0
        },
        {
            "slug": "cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term",
            "title": "Cropland per person over the long-term",
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            "keyChartLevel": 0
        },
        {
            "slug": "dietary-land-use-vs-gdp-per-capita",
            "title": "Dietary land use vs. GDP per capita",
            "variantName": null,
            "keyChartLevel": 0
        },
        {
            "slug": "extent-of-extensive-agriculture",
            "title": "Extent of extensive agriculture",
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2013-11-13 17:03:27

2024-03-19 18:38:03

[
    "Hannah Ritchie",
    "Max Roser"
]

How is humanity using the Earth’s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?

2013-11-13 17:03:27

2020-12-02 17:40:52

https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png

{}

First published in September 2019. The focus of this entry is land use for agriculture. But we are also studying other uses of land, including land required for human settlement. Agriculture is a major use of land. Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. The extensive land use has a major impact on the earth's environment as it reduces wilderness and threatens biodiversity. Reducing the consumption of resource-intensive products and increasing the productivity of land makes it possible to produce food with much smaller inputs and reducing the impact on the environment. **[See all interactive charts on land use ↓](#all-charts)** --- # Breakdown of global land use today --- ### Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture For much of human history, most of the world’s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land. If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that [only 4 million](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term) square kilometers – less than 4% of the world’s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming. In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land – deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}‘Barren land’ refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call ‘habitable land’. **Half** of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is [sourced from](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home) the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth’s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as ‘natural’ or ‘semi-natural’ land. Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., & Ramankutty, N. (2010). [Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x). _Global Ecology and Biogeography_, _19_(5), 589-606. The major uncertainties – and explanation for discrepancies – in these assessments is the allocation of ‘rangelands’: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref} This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% – a much smaller share than many suspect – is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure. There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world’s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). [Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987). _Science_, 360(6392), 987-992. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide [global statistics](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS) on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world’s calories. The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world’s protein. The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref} The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity’s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts – both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. [Crop yields](https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields) have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we [need only 30%](https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production) of the farmland. <Image filename="Global-land-use-graphic.png" alt=""/> With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats. ## How the world's land is used: total area sizes by type of use & cover Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above – on the breakdown of global land use & cover – by scale on a global map. Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only. We see that: * global land allocated to livestock - either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined); * cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand; * forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia; * global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia * total build-up land (villages, towns, cities & infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya; * shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards; * barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe; * glaciers (permanent ice & snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica & Greenland combined. <Image filename="World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png" alt=""/> --- # How has global land use changed over the long-term? --- The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the "change country/region" option. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term"/> --- # Agricultural land use over the long-run --- ## Total agricultural land use This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term"/> ## Cropland use This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term"/> ## Grazing land use This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term"/> --- # How much land do countries use for agriculture? --- We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture. There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It's important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section. If we view the map in "chart" mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world's regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture"/> ## Arable agriculture (cropland) There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area). For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however; countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture"/> ## Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture) For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area. As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014"/> --- # Cropland use per person --- ### Cropland per person over the long-term The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term"/> ### Cropland use per person in the near-term Global population has [more than doubled](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/) over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential. In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world's regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America-- more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia-- both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person"/> --- # Agricultural land use per person --- ### Agricultural land per person over the long-term The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person"/> ### Agricultural land per person over the near-term If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961. Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person - now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita"/> --- # Land use by crop --- In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land. The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961-- an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type"/> --- # Land use by food type --- The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product--this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the "land footprint") to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types. At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it's important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type"/> ## Arable land needed per unit of crop production This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting 'add country' on the chart. The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail [here](http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf). The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) – Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221–242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online [here](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract).{/ref} The authors write: _'A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature. Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.'_ <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin"/> --- # Definitions --- ## Land use categories The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of "arable land" versus "agricultural land". To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources. <Image filename="Land-use-classification.png" alt=""/> ## Definitions of agricultural land use The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as 'agricultural area' by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area). The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world's agricultural area.{ref} These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) – Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online [here](http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF). For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref} What do these words mean? The **agricultural area** is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures. The FAO definition for **arable land** is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for “Arable land” are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online [here](http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx). {/ref} The same source defines **permanent crops **as follows: 'Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for _permanent meadows and pastures _is 'land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).' The FAO definition for **fallow land** is 'the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.' --- # Data Sources --- ### FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat) * **Data:** Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use – the full list is [here](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data). * **Geographical coverage:** Global – by country and world region. * **Time span:** Since 1961. * **Available at:** Available for download [here](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data). <AllCharts heading="Interactive charts on land use"/>

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        "rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">First published in September 2019.</div>\n\n\n\n<p>The focus of this entry is land use for agriculture. But we are also studying other uses of land, including land required for human settlement. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Agriculture is a major use of land. Half of the world\u2019s habitable land is used for agriculture. The extensive land use has a major impact on the earth&#8217;s environment as it reduces wilderness and threatens biodiversity.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reducing the consumption of resource-intensive products and increasing the productivity of land makes it possible to produce food with much smaller inputs and reducing the impact on the environment.<br></p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Breakdown of global land use today</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Half of the world&#8217;s habitable land is used for agriculture</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>For much of human history, most of the world\u2019s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term\">only 4 million</a> square kilometers \u2013 less than 4% of the world\u2019s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming.<br><br>In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. 10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land \u2013 deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{ref}\u2018Barren land\u2019 refers to land cover in which less than one-third of the area has vegetation or other cover; barren land typically has thin soil, sand or rocks and includes deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks.{/ref} This leaves what we call \u2018habitable land\u2019. <strong>Half</strong> of all habitable land is used for agriculture.{ref}This data is <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#home\">sourced from</a> the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Other studies confirm this distribution of global land: in an analysis of how humans have transformed global land use in recent centuries, Ellis et al. (2010) found that by 2000, 55% of Earth\u2019s ice-free (not simply habitable) land had been converted into cropland, pasture, and urban areas. This left only 45% as \u2018natural\u2019 or \u2018semi-natural\u2019 land.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ellis, E. C., Klein Goldewijk, K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D., &amp; Ramankutty, N. (2010). <a href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x\">Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000</a>. <em>Global Ecology and Biogeography</em>, <em>19</em>(5), 589-606.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The major uncertainties \u2013 and explanation for discrepancies \u2013 in these assessments is the allocation of \u2018rangelands\u2019: in some regions it can be difficult to accurately quantify how much of rangelands are used for grazing, and how much is free from human pressure. Despite this uncertainty, most analyses tend to converge on an estimate of close to half of habitable land being used for agriculture.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This leaves only 37% for forests; 11% as shrubs and grasslands; 1% as freshwater coverage; and the remaining 1% \u2013 a much smaller share than many suspect \u2013 is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. While livestock takes up most of the world\u2019s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world\u2019s calories and 37% of total protein.{ref}Poore, J., &amp; Nemecek, T. (2018). <a href=\"https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987\">Reducing food\u2019s environmental impacts through producers and consumers</a>. <em>Science</em>, 360(6392), 987-992.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provide <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS\">global statistics</a> on crop and food production, supply chains, and food available for human consumption. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2013, the global average per capita energy availability from vegetal products was 2370 kilocalories per person per day, and 514kcal from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [514 / (514 + 2370) * 100] = 18% of the world\u2019s calories.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The global average per capita protein availability from vegetal products was 49 grams per person per day, and 32g from animal products. Animal products therefore accounted for [32 / (32 + 49) * 100] = 39% of the world\u2019s protein.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The figures given here are slightly lower for protein production (37% of the world total) because seafood from wild capture fisheries are not included (as they are not grown on terrestrial land).{/ref}<br><br>The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity\u2019s largest impacts on the environment. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity. But we also know that we can reduce these impacts \u2013 both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields\">Crop yields</a> have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#arable-land-needed-per-unit-of-crop-production\">need only 30%</a> of the farmland.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"511\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-800x511.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29757\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-800x511.png 800w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-400x255.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-150x96.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-768x490.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-1536x980.png 1536w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-2048x1307.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With solutions from both consumers and producers, we have an important opportunity to restore some of this farmland back to forests and natural habitats.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3>How the world&#8217;s land is used: total area sizes by type of use &amp; cover</h3>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>Visualising land use areas on a global map is perhaps the most relatable way to understand the scale of different land uses across the world. In the visualization here we show the graphic displayed above \u2013 on the breakdown of global land use &amp; cover \u2013 by scale on a global map.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, land use groupings are aggregated to show the total surface area allocated for each. Note that these are not used to represent the distribution of each: this figure does not mean the United States is wholly used for livestock, or that Europe comprises only of barren land. It is used to indicate the global areal extent of each land use only.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We see that:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>global land allocated to livestock &#8211; either in the form of grazing land or cropland used for animal feed is equivalent to the area of the Americas (North, Central and South America combined);</li><li>cropland (minus land used for the production of animal feed) is equivalent to the area of East Asia-Pacific, extending as far south as Thailand;</li><li>forested area is equal to Africa (minus Libya), the Middle East and South Asia;</li><li>global freshwater (inland water bodies) approximates to the area of Mongolia</li><li>total build-up land (villages, towns, cities &amp; infrastructure) would fit into an area the size of Libya;</li><li>shrub land is equivalent to an area the size of East Asia-Pacific, from Malaysia southwards;</li><li>barren land is equivalent to the size of Europe;</li><li>glaciers (permanent ice &amp; snow) approximates to an area of Antarctica &amp; Greenland combined.</li></ul>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"6251\" height=\"4695\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14270\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png 6251w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-150x113.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-400x300.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-768x577.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01-732x550.png 732w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 6251px) 100vw, 6251px\" /></a></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>How has global land use changed over the long-term?</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The visualisation shows human land use over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), and details the change in total land used for cropland, grazing land and built-up/urban area in hectares. This can also be viewed by select countries and all regions using the &#8220;change country/region&#8221; option.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Agricultural land use over the long-run</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Total agricultural land use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualisation shows total land used for agriculture (which is a combination of cropland and grazing land) over the long-term, measured in hectares. In the following sections you can find disaggregated data for cropland and grazing land change over time.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-area-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Cropland use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualisation shows total cropland (which does not include land for grazing) over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-use-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Grazing land use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualisation shows total grazing land over the long-term, measured in hectares.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/grazing-land-use-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>How much land do countries use for agriculture?</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>We use roughly half of global habitable land for agriculture. But how much of total land area is utilised for agriculture across the world? In the map here we see the share of total (both habitable and non-habitable) land area used for agriculture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is large variability in the share of land a given country uses for agriculture. Allocation ranges from less than ten percent, particularly across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Scandinavian region to close to 80 percent across most regions (including the UK, Uruguay, South Africa, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia). It&#8217;s important to note that this metric includes both land used for arable (cropland) production and pasture land for livestock grazing; this means that agriculture can consume a large share of land area, even in arid and semi-arid regions where extensive arable farming is not possible. We will explore this difference in cropland and pastureland in the following section.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we view the map in &#8220;chart&#8221; mode, we see how the allocation of land to agriculture has changed over time across the global regions. The share of land used for agriculture has been slowly increasing across most of the world&#8217;s regions over the past few decades. However, land use across Europe and Central Asia- particularly within the European Union (EU) zone- and North America has been declining.&nbsp;</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-agriculture\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Arable agriculture (cropland)</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two main uses of agricultural land: arable farming (which is land dedicated to growing crops), and pastureland (which includes meadows and pastures used for livestock rearing). In the chart here we see a global map of land used for arable agriculture (as a share of total land area).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For most countries, as we will show in the section below, land use for livestock grazing is dominant relative to arable farming. For most countries, land dedicated to cropland is typically below 20 percent, with many countries dedicating less than 10 percent. There are some notable exceptions, however; &nbsp;countries in South Asia and Europe allocate a large share of land area to arable farming. India, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Denmark all dedicated more than half of total land area to cropland in 2015.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-arable-agriculture\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Pastureland (permanent meadows and pasture)</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>For most countries, the majority of agricultural land is used for livestock rearing in the form of pastureland. In the map here we see the share of permanent meadows and pasture as a percentage of total land area.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a contrast to arable farming, land use for livestock in Europe and South Asia, in particular, is typically less than 20 percent. However, most continental regions have countries where pastureland reaches close to half of total land area. In some countries (particularly in Central Asia, including Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) this can reach up to 70 percent. Livestock farming can take place across a range of diverse climatic and environmental regions (for example, ranging from cattle rearing in temperate regions to sheep farming in hilly and semi-arid terrain); meaning that this type of agriculture is potentially less geographically-constrained than arable farming.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-land-area-used-for-permanent-meadows-and-pastures-1961-2014\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cropland use per person</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Cropland per person over the long-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The visualisation here shows the change in the average cropland use per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cropland-per-person-over-the-long-term\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Cropland use per person in the near-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Global population has <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth/\">more than doubled</a> over the last 50 years. To meet the demands of a rapidly growing population on a planet with finite land resources, reducing our per capita land footprint is essential.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart here we have plotted trends of the average arable land use per person across the world&#8217;s regions. Overall we see that the arable land use per capita has declined across all regions since 1961. Per capita land use is highest in North America&#8211; more than double the land use of any other region. Land use in Asia&#8211; both in South and East Asia is lowest (5-6 times less than in North America). Rates of reduction in South Asia have been the most dramatic; per capita land use in 2014 was roughly one-third of its value in 1961.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-use-per-person\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Agricultural land use per person</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Agricultural land per person over the long-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The visualisation shows the change in the average agricultural land use (which is the sum of cropland and grazing area) per person over the long-term (since 10,000 BC), measured in hectares per person.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-agricultural-land-use-per-person\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h4>Agricultural land per person over the near-term</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>If we extend our land coverage above from arable land use to total agricultural land (which is the sum of arable, permanent crops and pastures and meadows), we still see overall declines in land per person but with different rates and patterns of reduction. Overall, we see that agricultural land per person is higher than that of arable land. At the global level, per capita agricultural land use is now less than half its value in 1961.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Africa in particular has seen dramatic reductions in agricultural land per person &#8211; now less than one-third of per capita land 50 years ago. The Americas (North and South) and Africa have notably higher per capita agricultural land use relative to Europe and Asia. &nbsp;</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Land use by crop</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>In the chart here we see the global area of land use in agriculture by major crop types, from 1961 to 2014. Overall, we see that the majority of our arable land is used for cereal production; this has grown from around 650 to 720 million hectares (an area roughly twice the size of Germany) over this period. The total land area used for coarse grains has remained approximately constant over this 50 year period, and is the 2nd largest user of arable land.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most dramatic increase in land allocation is in the production of oilcrops. Total land area used for oilcrop production has increased almost 3-fold since 1961&#8211; an area just short of the size of Mexico. All other crop types take up less than 100 million hectares of global area.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-agricultural-land-use-by-major-crop-type\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Land use by food type</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p>The amount of land required to produce food has wide variations depending on the product&#8211;this is especially true when differentiating crops and animal products. In the chart here we have plotted the average land required (sometimes termed the &#8220;land footprint&#8221;) to produce one gram of protein across a range of food types.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the bottom of the scale, we see that cereal crops typically have a small land impact per unit of protein (although such protein is often lacking in some essential amino acids). At the upper end of the spectrum we find meat products, with the land required for beef or mutton up to 100 times larger than cereals. However, it&#8217;s important to note the differences in land required across the meat products: poultry and pork have a land footprint 8-10 times lower than that of beef. This means individuals can make notable reductions in the environmental impact of their diets simply by substituting lower-impact meat products for beef or mutton. &nbsp;</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-per-gram-of-protein-by-food-type\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3>Arable land needed per unit of crop production</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This visualization shows the index of the arable land area needed to produce an equivalent aggregate of crop production, relative to the land area needed in 1961 i.e. values in 1961 are equal to 1.0. For example, globally in 2014, the index value was 0.3; this means only 30% of the arable land area was needed to produce the same quantity of crops relative to 1961. 70% less land was needed. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This data can be viewed for other countries and regions by selecting &#8216;add country&#8217; on the chart.<br><br>The crop production index (PIN) is the sum of crop commodities produced (after deductions of quantities used as seed and feed). It is weighted by the commodity prices. The FAO explains the construction of the PIN in detail <a href=\"http://fenixservices.fao.org/faostat/static/documents/QI/QI_e.pdf\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The idea for this chart is taken from Ausubel, Wernick, and Waggoner (2013).{ref}Jesse H. Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick, Paul E. Waggoner (2013) \u2013&nbsp;Peak Farmland and the Prospect for Land Sparing. Population and Development Review, Volume 38, Issue Supplement s1, pages 221\u2013242, February 2013. DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x. Online <a href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00561.x/abstract\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p> The authors write: <em>&#8216;A combination of agricultural technologies raised yields, keeping downward pressure on the extent of cropland, sparing land for nature.<br>Countering the global rise of population and affluence by parents and workers, consumers and farmers restrained the expansion of arable land by changing tastes and lifting yields. The noticeable shrinkage in the extent of cropland as a function of the Crop Production index since 1990 provides encouragement that farmers will continue sparing land.&#8217;</em></p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/arable-land-pin\"></iframe></figure>\n\n\n\n<h2>Definitions</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-style-sticky-right\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Land use categories</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The following discussions on global land use (particularly in relation to agriculture) cover a number of definitions and combined categories. It is therefore useful to understand the differences between land use terminology; for example, the definition of &#8220;arable land&#8221; versus &#8220;agricultural land&#8221;.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>To provide some clarity on the definitions used here (and the common terminology within the literature) we have visualised these land use categories and groupings in the chart shown here. Also shown are the definitions of each. The groupings and definitions shown below are based on the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and should therefore be consistent with most international data sources.</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2014\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13005\" srcset=\"https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification.png 3000w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-150x101.png 150w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-400x269.png 400w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-768x516.png 768w, https://owid.cloud/app/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-classification-750x504.png 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 3000px) 100vw, 3000px\" /></a></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<h3>Definitions of agricultural land use</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The Land Area of the World is 13,003 million ha. 4,889 million ha are classified as &#8216;agricultural area&#8217; by the FAO (this is 37.6% of the Land Area).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The agricultural area use is divided into 3 categories: arable land (28% of the global agricultural area), permanent crops (3%) and permanent meadows and pastures (69%) which account for the largest share of the world&#8217;s agricultural area.{ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These numbers are taken from FAO (2013) \u2013 Statistical Yearbook. Table 4. Online <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3107e/i3107e.PDF\">here</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For comparison: The area of the USA, Canada and China are all short of 1,000 million ha (USA 963 million ha, China 932 million ha, Canada 909 million ha).{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do these words mean?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>agricultural area</strong> is the sum of arable land, permanent crops, permanent meadows and pastures.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FAO definition for <strong>arable land</strong> is land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for \u201cArable land\u201d are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.'{ref}This is the definition given by the UN&#8217;s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in their glossary that is online <a href=\"http://faostat.fao.org/site/375/default.aspx\">here</a>. {/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same source defines <strong>permanent crops </strong>as follows: &#8216;Permanent crops are divided into temporary and permanent crops. Permanent crops are sown or planted once, and then occupy the land for some years and need not be replanted after each annual harvest, such as cocoa, coffee and rubber. This category includes flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes trees grown for wood or timber. And again from the same source the definition for <em>permanent meadows and pastures </em>is &#8216;land used permanently (five years or more) to grow herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing wild (wild prairie or grazing land).&#8217;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The FAO definition for <strong>fallow land</strong> is &#8216;the cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons. The maximum idle period is usually less than five years.&#8217;</p>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\">\n<p></p>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2>Data Sources</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>FAO Statistical Database (FAOstat)</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong>&nbsp;Many indicators relating to food production, yields and land use \u2013 the full list is <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data\">here</a>.</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong>&nbsp;Global \u2013 by country and world region.</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong>&nbsp;Since 1961.</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong>&nbsp;Available for download <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here</a>.</li></ul>\n",
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    "excerpt": {
        "rendered": "How is humanity using the Earth\u2019s land? And how can we decrease our land use so that more land is left for wildlife?",
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    "date_gmt": "2013-11-13T17:03:27",
    "modified": "2020-12-02T17:40:52",
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    "ping_status": "closed",
    "authors_name": [
        "Hannah Ritchie",
        "Max Roser"
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    "modified_gmt": "2020-12-02T17:40:52",
    "comment_status": "open",
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