A new study compares the effects of expansion vs. intensification of cropland use on global agricultural markets and biodiversity, and finds that the expansion strategy poses a particularly serious threat to biodiversity in the tropics.
A new study compares the effects of expansion vs. intensification of cropland use on global agricultural markets and biodiversity, and finds that the expansion strategy poses a particularly serious threat to biodiversity in the tropics.
Global agricultural production must be further increased in the coming years in order to meet rising demand and changing patterns of consumption. This will require either intensification of cropland use or an expansion of farmland. Researchers based at LMU Munich, at Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (Leipzig) and at Palacký University in Olomouc (Czech Republic) have now evaluated the trade-offs between food security and the preservation of biodiversity associated with both strategies in the context of global agricultural markets. The study appears in the journal Nature Communications.
“Agriculture is one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss worldwide, and increases in production are almost always achieved at the expense of biodiversity. But whether and where production rises due to intensification or expansion of cropland does make a difference,” says Dr. Florian Zabel of the Department of Geography and Remote Sensing at LMU.
Read more at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
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