Current and Future Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Global Crop Intensification and Expansion

Abstract:

Food systems currently contribute up to one-third of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and these emissions are expected to rise as demand for agricultural products increases. Thus, improving the greenhouse gas emissions efficiency of agriculture – the tons or kilocalories of production per ton of CO₂ equivalent emissions – will be critical to support a resilient future global system. Here, we model and evaluate global, 2000-era, spatially explicit relationships between a suite of greenhouse gas emissions from various agronomic practices (i.e., fertilizer application, peatland draining, and rice cultivation) and crop yields. Then, we predict potential emissions from future crop production increases achieved through intensification and extensification, including CO₂ emissions from croplands replacing non-urban land cover. We find that 2000-era yield-scaled agronomic emissions are highly heterogeneous across crops types, crop management practices, and regions. Rice agriculture produces more total CO₂-equivalent emissions than any other crop. Moreover, inundated rice in just a few countries contributes the vast majority of these rice emissions. Crops such as sunflower and cotton have low efficiency on a caloric basis. Our results suggest that intensification tends to be a more efficient pathway to boost greenhouse gas emissions efficiency than expansion. We conclude by discussing potential crop- and region-specific agricultural development pathways that may boost the greenhouse gas emissions efficiency of agriculture.