Sheng Di, Edmonds James A, Patel Pralit, Waldhoff Stephanie T, O'Neill Brian C, Wise Marshall A, Zhao Xin
Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD, USA.
Nat Food. 2025 Feb;6(2):139-150. doi: 10.1038/s43016-024-01088-6. Epub 2025 Jan 2.
Long-term labour market evolution shapes agricultural transformation through labour productivity growth and labour market transitions. Despite its importance in agricultural production, labour has been overlooked when exploring the agrifood-water-environment-climate nexus. Here we incorporate evolving labour markets into multisector dynamic modelling to examine their agroeconomic and environmental implications. Our projections show that the recent decline of global agricultural employment persists, with an estimated decadal decrease of 43 million people by 2100, strengthening the decoupling of labour from production. Exploring scenarios with varying labour productivity and supply factors, we also show a positive relationship between productivity-adjusted labour supply and agricultural emissions, with more pronounced and heterogeneous regional and sectoral responses. While highlighting the pressing need to capture labour dynamics in integrated human-Earth systems, our study lays the foundation for further investigation into labour market responses and feedback in broader scenarios.
长期劳动力市场演变通过劳动生产率增长和劳动力市场转型塑造农业转型。尽管劳动力在农业生产中很重要,但在探索农业-食品-水-环境-气候关系时却被忽视了。在这里,我们将不断演变的劳动力市场纳入多部门动态模型,以研究其农业经济和环境影响。我们的预测表明,全球农业就业人数近期的下降趋势将持续,预计到2100年十年间将减少4300万人,强化了劳动力与生产的脱钩。通过探索不同劳动生产率和供应因素的情景,我们还表明,经生产率调整后的劳动力供应与农业排放之间存在正相关关系,区域和部门的反应更为显著且具有异质性。在强调迫切需要在人类-地球综合系统中捕捉劳动力动态的同时,我们的研究为进一步调查更广泛情景下的劳动力市场反应和反馈奠定了基础。