Economic growth in poorer countries may be the best way to protect biodiversity, according to a new study led by University of Minnesota researchers recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Cropland expansion is a major environmental issue, causing habitat loss and climate change. That’s part of the reason why debates about the environment and economic growth often pit the two against each other, said lead author Steve Polasky, environmental economist at the University of Minnesota.
“The standard line is if you make people richer, they’re just going to want to eat more, and they’re going to want to eat more meat, and that's going to be bad for nature,” Polasky said. “But there's a couple of other factors going on.”
The study examines global trends to project how much land will be used for crops in low-income countries under different potential futures. Researchers found that if these countries have accelerated economic development, global cropland demand may shrink
That’s because rising incomes are associated with reduced population growth and higher agricultural yields, meaning more food from less land. Researchers highlight that these trends have already been observed in other countries, such as the United States and China.
“As people become wealthier, we see this: people don't have as many children,” Polasky said. “And then there’s the supply-side: farmers, when they have more resources, and when they are in societies that have more resources, they do better, they increase their yields.”
Those two factors more than offset the change in tastes associated with higher incomes. Polasky said the result told the “hopeful story” that easing global poverty and helping the environment can happen at the same time without relying on diet changes.
“I've been to many workshops where they say we just need to change diets, and that's like one of the hardest things to do,” he said.
Potential paths to economic growth
Polasky and his team highlighted several policies that could help boost developing economies while reducing cropland demand, such as directing more money toward agricultural research in developing countries.
“Why have we seen such large yield increases in Iowa and Minnesota and the rest of the U.S.?” he said. “Part of that is that, historically, we've put a fair amount of money into research and development and into extension, so getting the advances and the better seeds out of university laboratories and into seed companies and to farmers.”
Freer trade could help developing economies, too, Polasky said. If crops are mostly produced in countries with the highest yields and exported to lower-yield countries, that could reduce global cropland requirements and biodiversity loss. But like trying to change diets, that might also be a hard sell in the United States given the Trump Administration's protectionist policies.
“This move towards higher tariffs, more tariff barriers, non-tariff barriers is a move that moves against that and reduces the ability of U.S. farmers to effectively feed the world and take pressure off of land expansion elsewhere,” Polasky said.
