Suchergebnisse

Competition between direct consumption of plant production and the feeding of livestock is key to global food availability. This is because livestock consume edible commodities that could be available for (food insecure) populations but also because it diverts arable land from food production. The share of total plant production redirected towards feeding livestock is (roughly) known but estimations of land surfaces virtually occupied by livestock production are scarce. In this study, following up on the Agrimonde Terra** project, we estimate areas devoted to the feeding livestock. First, we estimate the protein composition of an averaged feed basket at the global scale in 2005 and detail the evolution of the protein-source feed component during the period 1961–2009. We focus on protein-rich crops such as oil crops and show its proportion in the global livestock diets has tripled since 1960, though only accounting for about one fourth of total proteins. Then, we estimate land virtually occupied by crop feed at the global scale using a set of straightforward hypotheses. Our estimates suggest that, although livestock and feed production has continuously increased and despite uncertainties in available data, competition for land between feed and food uses has decreased over the last two decades. The share of areas cultivated for feed requirements decreased from about 50% in the 1970s to 37% nowadays. This trend is attributable to the increase of crop yields and to a decrease of the share of cereals in livestock diets to the benefit of oilseeds by-products. However, estimating the share of total areas used for feed is complicated by the significant role played by by-products.

By 2050, the agricultural sector should produce food to feed an increased and wealthier population, while reducing environmental impacts. In particular, conversion of natural ecosystems and greenhouse gas emissions are serious potential impacts of agricultural production. To take up this challenge, many options exist for the agricultural sector. Some are on the supply side, such as increasing the efficiency of livestock production, increasing the efficiency in crop production inputs, or a sustainable increase of aquaculture. Others are on the demand side, such as changes in diets, reduction of losses and wastes or, more controversially, reduction in population increase. The overall consequences of those options on land-use and greenhouse gas emissions, especially when taken together, are not easy to assess in a transparent and consistent way. To tackle this challenge, a simple balance model with detailed biophysical modules is developped to assess the consequences in term of greeenhouse gases emissions reductions of various options for the agricultural sector, under the constraint of feeding the world. The reference year balances are based on FAOSTAT food commodity balances. Demand is set exogenously based on population and diets, trade is based on import dependence and export market shares, and loss coefficients are used. Transformation through livestock sectors and oil crops crushing allows to determine production, and, with exogenously set yields, land-use. In the reference case, yields and demands evolutions are based on FAO projections. Detailed modules of livestock, aquaculture, land-use change emissions, nitrogen cycle and rice methane emissions allow to determine transformation and emission coefficients, as well as the consequences of diverse options. The model integrates those informations at the global scale on several regions, allowing to assess in a transparent way the consequences of the options used together. The methodology and the model results will be presented for change in livestock efficiency, rice methane emissions mitigation options, changes in diets and increases in nitrogen use efficiency. (Texte intégral)

International audience ; La région Afrique du Nord – Moyen-Orient (ANMO), géopolitiquement complexeet hautement stratégique, dépend fortement des importations de produitsagricoles : 40 % de ses besoins alimentaires sont aujourd'hui couverts par desimportations. Sur les cinq dernières décennies, la croissance démographique etles changements d'habitudes alimentaires ont entraîné une forte croissance desbesoins alimentaires. Même si la production agricole de la région a augmentéde façon substantielle sur cette même période, cette croissance n'a pas étésuffisante pour suivre celle de la demande, du fait pour partie des contraintesclimatiques et de ressources en terres et pour partie du fait des défaillancesdes politiques agricoles. À l'avenir, la dépendance régionale aux importationsagricoles devrait vraisemblablement continuer à croître sous les effets conjuguésde l'expansion démographique, des évolutions des régimes alimentaires et aussides effets du changement climatique dans une région reconnue comme unpoint chaud climatique. Les importations de produits agricoles pèsent fortementsur les budgets des pays de la région dont les politiques agricoles et alimentairesdoivent plus que jamais cibler les questions de pauvreté rurale et urbaine. Dansce contexte général, il est essentiel d'analyser les facteurs qui contribueront àaccroître, ou au contraire diminuer, la dépendance aux importations agricoles dela région. La présente étude examine plusieurs scénarios régionaux à l'horizon2050 en prenant en compte les effets attendus du changement climatique. Cesscénarios sont simulés à l'aide d'un modèle de flux de biomasse agricole. Lesrésultats suggèrent que la dépendance régionale aux importations agricolesdevrait continuer à croître, le changement climatique étant un facteur essentielde cette hausse. Aucun des mécanismes étudiés pour réduire cette dépendance(augmentation de la productivité agricole, modération des évolutions desrégimes alimentaires, réduction des pertes et gaspillages) ne serait en mesurede contrecarrer ...

Facing a growing and more affluent world population, changing climate and finite natural resources, world food systems will have to change in the future. The aim of the Agrimonde-Terra foresight study was to build global scenarios linking land use and food security, with special attention paid to overlooked aspects such as nutrition and health, in order to help explore the possible future of the global food system. In this article, we seek to highlight how the resulting set of scenarios contributes to the debate on land use and food security and enlarges the range of possible futures for the global food system. We highlight four main contributions. Combining a scenario building method based on morphological analysis and quantitative simulations with a tractable and simple biomass balance model, the proposed approach improves transparency and coherence between scenario narratives and quantitative assessment. Agrimonde-Terra's scenarios comprise a wide range of alternative diets, with contrasting underlying nutritional and health issues, which accompany contrasting urbanization and rural transformation processes, both dimensions that are lacking in other sets of global scenarios. Agrimonde-Terra's scenarios share some similarities with existing sets of global scenarios, notably the SSPs, but are usually less optimistic regarding agricultural land expansion up to 2050. Results suggest that changing global diets toward healthier patterns could also help to limit the expansion in agricultural land area. Agrimonde-Terra's scenarios enlarge the scope of possible futures by proposing two pathways that are uncommon in other sets of global scenarios. The first proposes to explore possible reconnection of the food industry and regional production within supranational regional blocs. The second means that we should consider that a 'perfect storm', induced by climate change and an ecological crisis combined with social and economic crises, is still possible. Both scenarios should be part of the debate as the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic shows.