Socio-economic impacts of agricultural land conversion: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Land use change (LUC) is one of the main factors of economic development, and humans have been changing land use for many years. Agricultural land conversion (ALC) is determined as a major process in many developing countries. The aim of this study was to investigate the widespread ALC and its main socio-economic impacts in developing countries during the last 50 years. This study was conducted through a meta-analysis of 56 original articles that identified the main impacts of the ALC from the 19th century onwards in four continents, including Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. The findings of meta-regression showed that spatiotemporal impacts had significant influences on socio-economic impacts, and the most important spatial impacts were related to the continents of America and Asia. In addition, the results of ALC’s rate coefficients in meta-regression indicated that the greatest social impacts were related to crime (2.17%) and the greatest economic impacts were related to endangering households’ revenue (2.98%). Therefore, it is concluded that the rapid conversion of agricultural land to achieve economic development leads to socio-economic impacts, and such economic development cannot be sustainable. Accordingly, it is suggested that the ALC consider such things as planning detailed investigations for the ALC, assessing the value of goods and services provided by agricultural land, monitoring unauthorized ALCs, and imposing fines and taxes on the unplanned ALC. Agricultural land provides important non-market goods and services with good management. Improper conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural land makes it unproductive and endangered, leading to global warming and climate change.