New research suggests that improving crop yields has reduced carbon emissions and land use worldwide, but that this might not be the case in the future.
The “Green Revolution” refers to the use of fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural technology to increase crop yields. Previous studies have shown that rather than decreasing the amount of land under cultivation, Green Revolutions can actually increase it. However, the authors of this latest paper suggest that those previous studies did not account for the fact that increasing production in one part of the world reduces production in other parts.
The authors modelled a world with and without these changes, and found that for historical Green Revolutions, global land use and carbon emissions are significantly lower than they would have been otherwise. However, the predictions for a future Green Revolution in Africa are more complex; emissions and land use may rise before eventually falling after a few decades.
Original research paper published in PNAS on September 8, 2014.
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