Cropland Implications of Healthier Diets in the United States

Abstract

We estimate the land-use impacts of healthier diets in the United States using a computable general equilibrium model developed by the Global Trade Analysis Project. We apply demand shocks based on dietary guidelines on the private household consumption of fruits, vegetables, and animal-based products to estimate how dietary changes impact the production levels and input use of crop sectors. We find that fruit and vegetable acreage would increase by 5.4 million acres in the United States. We also find that US cereal grain acreage would decrease under both animal protein consumption scenarios and decrease under one of the 2 dairy product consumption scenarios we consider.