The significance of different realms of value for agricultural land in Sweden

Erika Öhlund,Mikael Malmaeus,Eléonore Fauré

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104714

Abstract

The demand for additional agricultural land is expected to rise by approximately 50 per cent by 2050 on a global level, and agricultural land of high quality needs to be preserved to ensure future food security. However, agricultural land per capita is decreasing. One of the main reasons for this in the EU and globally is the building of houses or infrastructure on agricultural land. There is a possibility that the Swedish agricultural sector will grow in the future and supply more regions than its own territory with food due to, e.g., climate change. Although appropriate regulations exist to support local decision makers in protecting agricultural land in Sweden, the potential to provide such protection is not fully utilised. This paper aims to contribute to explaining why Swedish municipalities build on agricultural land through an analysis of the values behind the arguments for preserving and exploiting agricultural land at the municipal level and the implications of these values for the preservation of agricultural land in Sweden. Assuming value pluralism, we analyse 30 municipal comprehensive plans through a framework of nine realms of value. We find that municipalities deploy at least eight of the nine realms of value to motivate the preservation of agricultural land, but the economic realm is more dominant among arguments to exploit agricultural land. Most plans do not consider food security. Municipalities could become better prepared to handle unexpected events if they worked with longer-term future scenarios. Further research is needed regarding how different values are weighed against each other in actual exploitation issues.

Highlights

IntroductionA large proportion of energy needs may be met by other types of renewable energy, such as wind or solar energy, biofuels may play an important role in the energy transition and put additional pressure on agricultural land
By 2050, the global population is expected to rise to 9.77 billion inhabitants (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2017)
It reports which arguments were laid out in the municipal comprehensive plans (MCPs) for preserving and exploiting agricultural land, how prevalent each argument was in each region and which realms of value the arguments can be understood as falling under

Summary

Introduction

A large proportion of energy needs may be met by other types of renewable energy, such as wind or solar energy, biofuels may play an important role in the energy transition and put additional pressure on agricultural land. Bioenergy amounted to 12.4 per cent of the global total final energy consumption in 2017, of which almost twothirds was traditional biomass and one-third was modern bioenergy. A transition towards more modern bioenergy as a climate mitigation strategy may require land dedicated to bioenergy crops Considering these factors, the demand for additional agricultural land is expected to rise by approximately 50 per cent by 2050, and agricultural land of high quality needs to be preserved on a global level to ensure food security in the future (Gomiero, 2016). In addition to the negative effects of land conversion on biodiversity preservation and carbon storage potential (Meyfroidt et al, 2013), newly converted land is often of poorer quality for cultivation (Slätmo, 2017)

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