Resource Efficiency Key to Greater Crop Yields, Fewer Impacts, Says Study

Feeding the hungry world of tomorrow while mitigating the expansion of impacts on the environment may be possible if resources are used efficiently, suggests a new study from University of Minnesota and McGill University researchers.

The study, published in Nature, analyzes the water and nutrients needed for under-producing farm land to reach its potential, using yeild and mangement data for 17 major crops. The researchers found that most of the crops could see global yeild improvements of 45 to 70 percent, with gains concentrated in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe. The study also examines to what extent fertilizer can be conserved without significantly affecting yeild. Highlighting overuse of fertilizer in China, India, the US, and Western Europe, the researcher claim that we could decrease nitrogen use 28 percent and phosphorus use 38 percent. Using proper techniques, the paper concludes, bringing under-perfoming lands up to 75 percent of their production potential would require raising global nitrogen use by 9 percent. while phosphorus use could be decreased by 2 percent. Potassium use, however, would have to rise 34 percent.

"These results show that substantial gains are indeed possible from closing the yield gap- and combining these efforts with improved management of existing lands can potentially reduce agriculture's environmental impact," says lead author Nathaniel Mueller, a researcher at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment.

Global food demand is expected to double by 2050, due to population growth and changing eating habits. The world's population is predicted to peak at about the same time, reaching over 9 billion before the demographic transition that has lead to lower birth rates in the industrialized world takes hold in the global south. At the same time, eating habits are shifting as developing nations seek to emulate western, meat-heavy diets. Because of the amount of feed it takes to raise livestock for consumption, such a diet dramatically expands the demand for crops. Meanwhile, due to both poor infrastructure in developing countries and picky habits in the developed world, nearly a third of the world's food continues to go to waste.

The researchers caution readers that the analysis of their paper is at a large scale, and that a variety of factors not included in the paper remain relevant to the prospects of agriculture. These include local land characteristics, water availability, the use of organic fertilizers, economics, develepoment and geopolitics, and climate change. However, even with a rough analysis, the paper holds cautious hope for developing the capacity to sustainably intensify global food production- one part of the puzzle to feeding the future.

Image Source: Horn Portal