Ray Deepak K, Mueller Nathaniel D, West Paul C, Foley Jonathan A
Institute on the Environment (IonE), University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2013 Jun 19;8(6):e66428. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066428. Print 2013.
Several studies have shown that global crop production needs to double by 2050 to meet the projected demands from rising population, diet shifts, and increasing biofuels consumption. Boosting crop yields to meet these rising demands, rather than clearing more land for agriculture has been highlighted as a preferred solution to meet this goal. However, we first need to understand how crop yields are changing globally, and whether we are on track to double production by 2050. Using ∼2.5 million agricultural statistics, collected for ∼13,500 political units across the world, we track four key global crops-maize, rice, wheat, and soybean-that currently produce nearly two-thirds of global agricultural calories. We find that yields in these top four crops are increasing at 1.6%, 1.0%, 0.9%, and 1.3% per year, non-compounding rates, respectively, which is less than the 2.4% per year rate required to double global production by 2050. At these rates global production in these crops would increase by ∼67%, ∼42%, ∼38%, and ∼55%, respectively, which is far below what is needed to meet projected demands in 2050. We present detailed maps to identify where rates must be increased to boost crop production and meet rising demands.
多项研究表明，到2050年全球作物产量需要翻番，才能满足预计因人口增长、饮食结构变化和生物燃料消耗增加而产生的需求。提高作物产量以满足这些不断增长的需求，而非开垦更多土地用于农业生产，已被视为实现这一目标的首选解决方案。然而，我们首先需要了解全球作物产量是如何变化的，以及到2050年我们是否有望实现产量翻番。利用收集自全球约13500个政治单位的约250万条农业统计数据，我们追踪了四种主要的全球作物——玉米、水稻、小麦和大豆，它们目前提供了全球近三分之二的农业热量。我们发现，这四种主要作物的产量年增长率分别为1.6%、1.0%、0.9%和1.3%（非复利增长率），低于到2050年使全球产量翻番所需的每年2.4%的增长率。按照这些增长率，这些作物的全球产量将分别增长约67%、42%、38%和55%，远低于满足2050年预计需求所需的增幅。我们展示了详细的地图，以确定哪些地区必须提高产量增长率，以促进作物生产并满足不断增长的需求。
