Farming is rapidly becoming sustainable---all environmental metrics are improving

As farms become more productive, grasslands, forests, and wildlife are returning. Globally, the rate of reforestation is catching up to a slowing rate of deforestation.19

Humankind’s use of wood has peaked and could soon decline significantly.20 And humankind’s use of land for agriculture is likely near its peak and capable of declining soon.21 All of this is wonderful news for everyone who cares about achieving universal prosperity and environmental protection.

The key is producing more food on less land. While the amount of land used for agriculture has increased by 8 percent since 1961, the amount of food produced has grown by an astonishing 300 percent.22

Though pastureland and cropland expanded 5 and 16 percent, between 1961 and 2017, the maximum extent of total agriculture land occurred in the 1990s, and declined significantly since then, led by a 4.5 percent drop in pastureland since 2000.23 Between 2000 and 2017, the production of beef and cow’s milk increased by 19 and 38 percent, respectively, even as total land used globally for pasture shrank.24

The replacement of farm animals with machines massively reduced land required for food production. By moving from horses and mules to tractors and combine harvesters, the United States slashed the amount of land required to produce animal feed by an area the size of California. That land savings constituted an astonishing one-quarter of total U.S. land used for agriculture.25

Today, hundreds of millions of horses, cattle, oxen, and other animals are still being used as draft animals for farming in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Not having to grow food to feed them could free up significant amounts of land for endangered species, just as it did in Europe and North America.

As technology becomes more available, crop yields will continue to rise, even under higher temperatures. Modernized agricultural techniques and inputs could increase rice, wheat, and corn yields five-fold in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and developing nations.26 Experts say sub-Saharan African farms can increase yields by nearly 100 percent by 2050 simply through access to fertilizer, irrigation, and farm machinery.27

If every nation raised its agricultural productivity to the levels of its most successful farmers, global food yields would rise as much as 70 percent.28 If every nation increased the number of crops per year to its full potential, food crop yields could rise another 50 percent.29

Things are headed in the right direction regarding other environmental measures. Water pollution is declining in relative terms, per unit of production, and in absolute terms in some nations. The use of water per unit of agricultural production has been declining as farmers have become more precise in irrigation methods.

High-yield farming produces far less nitrogen pollution run-off than lowyield farming. While rich nations produce 70 percent higher yields than poor nations, they use just 54 percent more nitrogen.30 Nations get better at using nitrogen fertilizer over time. Since the early 1960s, the Netherlands has doubled its yields while using the same amount of fertilizer.31

High-yield farming is also better for soils. Eighty percent of all degraded soils are in poor and developing nations of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The rate of soil loss is twice as high in developing nations as in developed ones. Thanks to the use of fertilizer, wealthy European nations and the United States have adopted soil conservation and no-till methods, which prevent erosion. In the United States, soil erosion declined 40 percent in just fifteen years, between 1982 and 1997, while yields rose.32