Impacts of non-food crop production

November 2018: Crops for feedstock and fuel often promote deforestation and land conversion. Governments expand certification schemes to support a sustainable intensification of farming practices.

Information

Shifting consumption patterns towards (what are perceived as) more sustainable products intensifies demand for crops as fuel and feedstock. The resulting mono-crop agriculture causes land conversion from pastures and forests into farmland, which can result in the destruction of biomes, release of carbon from soil, and infringement of indigenous land rights, amongst others. The consequences of such land conversion and deforestation can be ‘hidden’ from end consumers, since their uses are often embedded in lower tiers of value chains.

Applicability

Companies and governments strive to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of rising demand for non-food crops by initiating certification schemes and investing in ‘sustainable intensification’ of farming practices. Due to its association with sever impacts, more extreme measures are being applied to soy production in the Amazon. Governments and companies have established supply-chain agreements that ban purchasing soy grown in areas of the Amazon defrosted after 2006. Major retailers such as Tesco have released plans to phase out soy grown on deforested land from their supply chains. However, there is still further demand for clear policy guidelines and enforcing mechanisms to intensify soy production without further land clearances

News

Academic

Graesser, J., Ramankutty, N., Coomes, O., 2018. Increasing expansion of large-scale crop production onto deforested land in sub-Andean South America. Environmental Research Letter, 13 (8), 084021.