Crop yields have increased significantly in recent decades, meaning we have spared a lot of land from agricultural production: globally, to produce the same amount of crops as in 1961, we need only 30% of the farmland. 4 But we also know that we can reduce these impacts – both through dietary changes, by substituting some meat with plant-based alternatives and through technology advances. It has transformed habitats and is one of the greatest pressures for biodiversity: of the 28,000 species evaluated to be threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List, agriculture is listed as a threat for 24,000 of them. The expansion of agriculture has been one of humanity’s largest impacts on the environment. While livestock takes up most of the world’s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein. If we combine pastures used for grazing with land used to grow crops for animal feed, livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land. There is also a highly unequal distribution of land use between livestock and crops for human consumption. This leaves only 37% for forests 11% as shrubs and grasslands 1% as freshwater coverage and the remaining 1% – a much smaller share than many suspect – is built-up urban area which includes cities, towns, villages, roads and other human infrastructure. Half of all habitable land is used for agriculture. 1 This leaves what we call ‘habitable land’.

10% of the world is covered by glaciers, and a further 19% is barren land – deserts, dry salt flats, beaches, sand dunes, and exposed rocks. In the visualization we see the breakdown of global land area today. If we rewind 1000 years, it is estimated that only 4 million square kilometers – less than 4% of the world’s ice-free and non-barren land area was used for farming. Over the last few centuries, this has changed dramatically: wild habitats have been squeezed out by turning it into agricultural land.

Share of world regions with land use presentįor much of human history, most of the world’s land was wilderness: forests, grasslands and shrubbery dominated its landscapes.Share of rural land area where the elevation is 5 meters or less.

Share of land defined as natural habitat.

Land use of foods per 1000 kilocalories.

How much global land is used as pasture for livestock?.

How much cropland has the world spared due to increases in crop yields?.

Has the world passed peak agricultural land?.

Has agricultural land increased or decreased over the last decade.

Extent of foraging, hunting and gathering.

Change in cereal production, yield and land use.

Area of land needed to meet global vegetable oil demand.

Arable land needed to produce a fixed quantity of crops.

6 times table chart up to 100