Abstract
Land supply is an age-old concern, with echoes in the Malthus theory. With the two founding premises of his theory, which he viewed as laws of nature, namely that “food is necessary to the existence of man” and “the passion between the sexes is necessary”, Robert Thomas Malthus observed that “population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio”, which signifies that “the power of population is (…) superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man” (Malthus, Essai sur le principe de population. Première édition de 1798, deuxième édition de 1803. See also Alternatives économiques Poche n 021, novembre 2005, 2005). Economist Daniel Cohen notes that “any improvement in a population’s standard of living sets off an exponential demographic growth that sooner or later must be stopped for lack of available land” (Cohen, La prospérité du vice, une introduction (inquiète) à l’économie, 2009). Malthus’ theory was—and still is—highly controversial, not only in terms of his founding ideas but for its moral and political implications. Nevertheless, Malthus’s “ominous” economic science, developed at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the global population was only 1 billion, had a profound influence on classic economists and led to many pessimistic ideas about the ability of the Earth to feed an expanding population. A century and a half later, the Club of Rome commissioned the 1972 Meadows Report, written by a team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a highly reputable university in the world of academics. This report placed new emphasis on the constraints generated by the limited character of natural resources. It outlined the dangers—especially environmental—of the world’s demographic and economic growth where food and energy resources are limited.
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- 1.
The Club of Rome is a thinktank that brings together scientists, economists and officials from national and international institutions, as well as industrial players to deal with complex issues that all countries, whether developing or industrialised, must face. It takes its name from its first meeting, held at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome on 8 April 1968. The Meadows Report was named after two of its co-authors, Donella Meadows and Dennis Meadows (the other two co-authors were Jorgen Randers and William Behrens).
- 2.
The data in this section, unless otherwise indicated, are from the FAOSTAT database, dating from 2007 (online database consulted on 10/08/2010).
- 3.
An effect according to which, due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, a greater quantity of CO2 is absorbed and transformed into biomass. This same effect was observed between 1982 and 1999. Nevertheless, according to Zhao and Running (2010), over the 2000–2009 period, global warming most likely had the inverse effect on CO2 storage by plants, as the negative impact of water stress weighed more heavily. The two scientists remain cautious, refusing to come to any hasty conclusions about whether it was just an anomaly or a reversed trend. For more details, see Zhao M., Running S. 2010. Drought-Induced Reduction in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 2000 through 2009. Science 329(5994): 940–943.
- 4.
Worldwide CO2 emissions for all sectors combined amounted to 29 Gt in 2007 (1 Gt equals 1 billion t).
- 5.
The effect is direct if the hectare of an energy crop replaces a hectare of meadow or forest. It is indirect if the hectare of an energy crop replaces a hectare of the same crop, but meeting food needs or the economic situation, notably agricultural prices, leads to moving this hectare of a food crop to land previously used for grassland or forests (see, for example, Morton et al., who analyse the impact of high soybean prices on deforestation in Brazil: Morton D.C., Defries R.S., Shimabukuro Y.E., Anderson L.O., Arei E., del Bon Espirito-Santo F., Freitas R., Morisette J. 2006. Cropland Expansion Changes Deforestation Dynamics in the Southern Brazilian Amazon. PNAS, 1003(39):14637–14641).
- 6.
Unless costly public policies are implemented to offset low yields on marginal lands.
- 7.
Biomass yield equals the amount of dry matter produced per hectare cultivated. Energy yield is defined as the ratio of the energy value produced by one unit of dry matter (numerator) and energy value required to produce that unit of dry matter (denominator). Its calculation depends on knowing (or making hypotheses for the future) the efficiency of the processes used to transform dry matter into energy.
- 8.
The potential contribution of urban, industrial and household residues is rarely analysed in these global studies.
- 9.
By 2050, land resources, and therefore biomass production potential, will be mainly concentrated in three areas: sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the former USSR. In 2050, transport energy demand will come mostly from North America, Europe, East and South Asia and Russia.
- 10.
On this point, see Berndes’s analysis of the impacts on water resources on large-scale bioenergy production through 2,100. It shows that such development would aggravate water scarcity and its unequal allocation and distribution in the world. Berndes G. 2002. Bioenergy and Water. The Implications of Large-Scale Bioenergy Production for Water Use and Supply. Global Environmental Change 12(4): 253–271.
- 11.
In the least favourable scenario in terms of available land for bioenergy production, a part of the 1.19 billion ha of converted pasture would be used for food crops for people or animals. Consequently, the surplus of agricultural land (pasture and crop land) used for bioenergy production would “only” be 730 million ha.
- 12.
In all the scenarios, the supply of agricultural products enables worldwide food demand to be met. Even more surprising is that in each scenario, sub-Saharan Africa would be able to meets its food needs in 2050 using only local production by freeing up a (large) surplus of land that would then be exploitable for bioenergy production.
- 13.
The diminished carbon storage in the soil related to biofuels production and resulting land use changes is commonly called “carbon debt” (Fargione et al., 2008. Op. cit.; Searchinger et al. 2008. Op. cit.). Over time, when land remains unchanged, this carbon debt is reduced and may even be cancelled out if the GHG emission linked to biofuels production and use are below those of the fossil fuel emissions they replace.
- 14.
Source: F.O. Licht (website consulted on 21/11/2010). Bioethanol in the EU is produced using wheat (46 % in 2007), sugar beets (29 %) and imports of various plant materials to be processed locally into bioethanol (25 %). Additionally, the EU (more specifically, certain Member States and especially Sweden) is a net importer of bioethanol.
- 15.
FAO Sugar Price Index (http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/FoodPriceIndex/fr/).
- 16.
At that time, world maize crop land was just under 160 million ha.
- 17.
Abbott P., Hurt C., Tyner W.E. 2008 (updated 2009). What’s Driving Food Prices? Farm Foundation, Issue Report, 75, July 2008 (updated March 2009). Global land area used for soybean cultivation rose nearly 15 % between 2002/2003 and 2006/2007, mainly in South America, to meet sharply rising Chinese demand. Since the middle of the 1980s, Chinese growth in vegetable oil consumption was greater than domestic production, a differential that means China had to import nearly 10 million t of vegetable oil in 2007, of which 6 million t of palm oil and 3 million t of soybean oil. What are we to make of this observation? Too much weight must not be given to a single determinant examined alone. It must be analysed within the context that defines changes in supply and demand of various agricultural goods.
- 18.
According to the OECD (2008), the oil market had a significant statistical influence on soybean and palm oil prices, as well as on rapeseed oil. Soybean oil prices also affect the price of rapeseed and palm oils. For more information, see OECD 2008. Impact relatif sur les prix mondiaux des produits des changements structurels à court et long terme sur les marchés agricoles, le choc des prix des matières premières: le retournement structurel d’une tendance de prix bas? TAD/CA/APM/CFS/MD(2008)3, OECD, Paris.
- 19.
In many African countries, the government is recognised as the only legal owner, which stems from the principle of state-owned public domains, a holdover from their colonial history.
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Guillou, M., Matheron, G. (2014). Will There be Enough Land?. In: The World’s Challenge. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8569-3_7
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