A method to determine land requirements relating to food consumption patterns

Abstract

Food production requires agricultural land. The area needed to feed a population depends on the one hand on production systems (e.g. yields per hectare), and on the other hand on the consumption (pattern) of this population. The amount of land available for food production is declining due to various reasons. Several studies on the food security item focussing on the production side of the question have been published over the last decade. However, food consumption patterns also have large effects on total land requirements and are probably in the same order of magnitude than changing production levels or the growth of the world population. Available studies estimated that an affluent diet requires more than three times as much land as a vegetarian diet. In this paper, attention is paid to the impact of consumption patterns on land requirements for food. A method is developed to calculate the land required to produce individual food items. In combination with data on household consumption, total requirements for food can be determined. The method is applied for the Dutch situation in 1990 and resulted in an overview of land requirements for over a hundred individual food items. Large differences between requirements for food items were observed. Especially the consumption of livestock products, oils and fats, and beverages have large effects on total land requirements. The data obtained with this method can be used to study the impact of relative small changes in consumption patterns. However, results are typical for the Dutch situation and cannot be used to derive land requirements for other populations, but the method can be applied for all countries from which the required data are available. In this way, the study can give a valuable contribution to the discussion on future land use. Available studies on food security have shown that future generations can be fed. The method presented in this study can be used to assess the possibility to do so in a way that not only physical but also cultural and emotional requirements are met.