Peak Farmland and Regrowing Forests
Event Details
Peak Farmland and Regrowing forests
RFF Academic Seminar
Presenters
Jesse Ausubel and Iddo Wernick, The Rockefeller University
Abstract
Our analysis shows trends in population, affluence, consumption, and technology are collectively lessening pressure on Arable Land expansion globally. However, the data also show that, especially in the last decade or two, greater volumes of crops (and thus arable land) are dedicated to calories not part of the food supply. Reducing the acreage devoted to nonfoods crops, in particular energy crops, offers a wide prospect for shrinking global arable land in the coming decades. We use the ImPACT identity, equating amounts of cropland used with the product of population, affluence, food calories consumed per GDP, crop production per calorie, and land required per unit of production. In the forest sector, we use similar analyses to show trends in consumption and production that project future reductions in the expanse of land used for human resource needs and the expansion of natural forests.
Date
Thursday, April 4, 2013
12:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Lunch will be provided
Location
7th Floor Conference Center
1616 P St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
All seminars will be in the 7th Floor Conference Room at RFF, 1616 P Street NW. Attendance is open, but involves pre-registration no later than two days prior to the event. For questions and to register to an event, please contact Khadija Hill at [email protected] (tel. 202-328-5174). Updates to our academic seminars schedule will be posted at www.rff.org/academicseminarseries.
