TY - JOUR
T1 - Increasing global crop harvest frequency
T2 - Recent trends and future directions
AU - Ray, Deepak
AU - Foley, Jonathan A.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - The world's agricultural systems face the challenge of meeting the rising demands from population growth, changing dietary preferences, and expanding biofuel use. Previous studies have put forward strategies for meeting this growing demand by increasing global crop production, either expanding the area under cultivation or intensifying the crop yields of our existing agricultural lands. However, another possible means for increasing global crop production has received less attention: increasing the frequency of global cropland harvested each year. Historically, many of the world's croplands were left fallow, or had failed harvests, each year, foregoing opportunities for delivering crop production. Furthermore, many regions, particularly in the tropics, may be capable of multiple harvests per year, often more than are harvested today. Here we analyze a global compilation of agricultural statistics to show how the world's harvested cropland has changed. Between 2000 and 2011, harvested land area grew roughly 4 times faster than total standing cropland area. Using a metric of cropland harvest frequency (CHF) - the ratio of land harvested each year to the total standing cropland - and its recent trends, we identify countries that harvest their croplands more frequently, and those that have the potential to increase their cropland harvest frequency. We suggest that a possible 'harvest gap' may exist in many countries that represents an opportunity to increase crop production on existing agricultural lands. However, increasing the harvest frequency of existing croplands could have significant environmental and social impacts, which need careful evaluation.
AB - The world's agricultural systems face the challenge of meeting the rising demands from population growth, changing dietary preferences, and expanding biofuel use. Previous studies have put forward strategies for meeting this growing demand by increasing global crop production, either expanding the area under cultivation or intensifying the crop yields of our existing agricultural lands. However, another possible means for increasing global crop production has received less attention: increasing the frequency of global cropland harvested each year. Historically, many of the world's croplands were left fallow, or had failed harvests, each year, foregoing opportunities for delivering crop production. Furthermore, many regions, particularly in the tropics, may be capable of multiple harvests per year, often more than are harvested today. Here we analyze a global compilation of agricultural statistics to show how the world's harvested cropland has changed. Between 2000 and 2011, harvested land area grew roughly 4 times faster than total standing cropland area. Using a metric of cropland harvest frequency (CHF) - the ratio of land harvested each year to the total standing cropland - and its recent trends, we identify countries that harvest their croplands more frequently, and those that have the potential to increase their cropland harvest frequency. We suggest that a possible 'harvest gap' may exist in many countries that represents an opportunity to increase crop production on existing agricultural lands. However, increasing the harvest frequency of existing croplands could have significant environmental and social impacts, which need careful evaluation.
KW - agriculture
KW - cropland harvest frequency
KW - harvest gap
KW - land use
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U2 - 10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044041
DO - 10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/044041
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84891916397
SN - 1748-9326
VL - 8
JO - Environmental Research Letters
JF - Environmental Research Letters
IS - 4
M1 - 044041
ER -