The land cultivated in Spain is insufficient to supply the country's consumption

The land cultivated in Spain is insufficient to supply the country's consumption https://i1.wp.com/www.eresviral.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/La-tierra-cultivada-en-España-es-insuficiente-para-abastecer-el-consumo-del-país.jpg?fit=219%2C146&ssl=1

The land cultivated in Spain is insufficient to supply the country's consumption





The land cultivated in Spain is insufficient to supply the country's consumption


Scientists from the Universities Pablo de Olavide (UPO), Córdoba (UCO) and Jaén (UJA) (Spain) have analyzed the evolution of the requirements of Spanish cultivated land from 1900 to 2008 relating it to consumption for the first time. According to this work, the productivity increases made in the last century are insufficient to meet the demands of land produced by the increase in consumption due to the increase in population and, above all, the change in diet, now based on meat products. . Thus, the inhabitants of Spain need an extension of similar cultivated land inside and outside the country to supply their consumption.



The article, entitled 'Land embodied in Spain's biomass trade and Japan (1900-2008): Historical changes, drivers and' and published in the Land Use Policy magazine, has estimated the soil required to produce biomass, that is, agricultural products and forestry that Spain consumes. To this end, it took into account agricultural and forestry products that are imported and exported (including industrial crops and animal feed), calculating the area they require. "The majority of biomass products require large amounts of land for their production," explains the Fundación Descubre Juan Infante Amate, a researcher at the Pablo de Olavide University (UPO) in Seville and the main author of the work.



"Our study shows that land needs have grown a lot in Spain, especially since 1960," continues Infante. "However, during this period the cultivated area in the country has fallen." Indeed, the area cultivated in Spain in 1960 was 20.4 million hectares (Mha), while in 2008 it was 17.3 Mha, according to the work. The technological change, which has multiplied by 3 the production per hectare, has allowed a saving of 27.1 million hectares of cultivation in Spain in the last century. However, the increase in population required an additional 17.6 Mha, and the change in diet 15.2. "Those 6 million additional in demand plus what we stop growing here come from other countries" concludes Infante.







Farmland. (Photo: F. Discover)



Since the 1960s, there has been an accelerated increase in the gap between the area cultivated inside and outside the country, reaching 22.8 Mha imported in 2008, 7 times more than 50 years ago. "By importing agricultural products from other countries what we do is to occupy virtually their land," summarizes the researcher. As a consequence, Spain needs the same cultivated area outside the country than inside. Spain has become a net importer of crops such as cereals, fruits and vegetables, while still exporting one of the most important crops in Andalusia, the olive grove. The surface of this crop increased in Spain from 1.3 to 2.4 million hectares during the last century, of which almost half (1.2 Mha) is exported.



"The impact is that our consumption model requires the occupation of more land, a scarce and fragile resource globally. In addition, outsourcing consumption outside the country makes us less sovereign in terms of food. On the other hand, these commercial flows generate environmental impacts in the countries that export us, such as emissions of greenhouse gases, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, erosion ... ".



According to Infante, the most obvious case is that of soy coming from Brazil: it is used to feed animals in Spain to support an increasingly meat diet, but there it generates problems such as deforestation or the displacement of local communities, which FAO ( Organization of the United Nations for Food and Agriculture) points out as first level problems.



The UPO researcher assures that this tendency to 'outsource' cultivated land is common in rich countries with high population density, although it also occurs in North African countries due to the aridity of the climate. This system also has advantages from the point of view of land use since trade allows locating production more efficiently. Thus, for example, the study shows that it is inefficient to import tomatoes, since the productivity of this crop in Spain doubles that of the outside. However, Infante points out that in this study only the use of land is counted. "Environmental impacts or productive efficiency should be analyzed by addressing other elements such as soil fertility, the impact on climate and other economic variables," he stresses.



This study, which has funding from the Council of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities of Canada and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, identifies the factors that make Spain a country that needs farmland abroad and that externalizes the impacts . This outsourcing of crops has advantages, but also promotes excessive consumption that has important impacts on producing countries. The researchers intend to continue studying how technological changes in the diet or climate would affect the demand for land in the coming years, which will make it possible to design more sustainable agricultural and food policies. (Source: Discover Foundation)

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