Nature Commun. 7, 11382 (2016)

Historically, increases in agricultural production have been accompanied by an expansion of cropland and grazing areas and the displacement of natural ecosystems. Continuing to provide for a rapidly growing and developing global population without compromising our remaining ecosystems represents a difficult set of challenges for society.

To help tackle this, with a particular focus on safeguarding forests, Karl-Heinz Erb at the Institute of Social Ecology, Alpen-Adria Universitaet Klagenfurt, Austria and co-workers assessed scenarios for feeding the world in 2050 without any deforestation. To do this they combined realistic assumptions about future crop yields, crop areas, livestock feed and human diets. For each scenario, they then determined whether the supply of crop products could satisfy demand and whether the grazing intensity was plausible.

They find, perhaps surprisingly, that many options exist that can meet the global food requirements in 2050 without deforestation, even at relatively low crop-yield levels. Scenario differences stem largely from differing human diets. The authors note in particular that without the option to expand agricultural area scenarios with globally converging diets require increased trade volumes. This tends to decrease the food self-sufficiency of many developing regions.