One-Third of Agricultural Land Accounts for Two-Thirds of Global Impact, Study Reveals

By Hilde Pracht

Agriculture covers more than 40% of Earth's habitable land and plays a central role in both climate change and biodiversity loss. Yet the impact of agriculture is far from evenly distributed across space.

In a new study published in Nature Food, Baoxiao Liu and her colleagues from Leiden's Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) mapped where agriculture causes the greatest damage worldwide.

Maps show where agriculture causes the greatest damage

Liu and her colleagues combined data on agricultural land, biodiversity and carbon storage with information on different food products. This allowed them to create global maps showing where agriculture places the greatest pressure on climate and nature.

The maps reveal that the impact is highly concentrated: Around two-thirds of biodiversity loss and the loss of natural carbon storage occur on just one-third of agricultural land.

The largest hotspots are found in Mexico and Central America, parts of Brazil, West Africa, India, China and Southeast Asia. "These are mainly regions where agriculture is either very intensive or takes place in ecosystems that naturally store large amounts of carbon and are rich in biodiversity, such as tropical forests," Liu explains. "When these areas are converted into farmland, both values are lost at the same time."