Increasing global crop harvest frequency: recent trends and future directions

By D. Ray, J. Foley. 2013

232 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The world’s agricultural systems face the challenge of meeting the rising demands from population growth, changing dietary preferences, and expanding biofuel use. Previous studies have put forward strategies for meeting this growing demand by increasing global crop production, either expanding the area under cultivation or intensifying the crop yields of our existing agricultural lands. However, another possible means for increasing global crop production has received less attention: increasing the frequency of global cropland harvested each year. Historically, many of the world’s croplands were left fallow, or had failed harvests, each year, foregoing opportunities for delivering crop production. Furthermore, many regions, particularly in the tropics, may be capable of multiple harvests per year, often more than are harvested today. Here we analyze a global compilation of agricultural statistics to show how the world’s harvested cropland has changed. Between 2000 and 2011, harvested land area grew roughly 4 times faster than total standing cropland area. Using a metric of cropland harvest frequency (CHF)—the ratio of land harvested each year to the total standing cropland—and its recent trends, we identify countries that harvest their croplands more frequently, and those that have the potential to increase their cropland harvest frequency. We suggest that a possible ‘harvest gap’ may exist in many countries that represents an opportunity to increase crop production on existing agricultural lands. However, increasing the harvest frequency of existing croplands could have significant environmental and social impacts, which need careful evaluation.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Food Science, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3591ce5bd3d8bd4ca758b1868cdcfe9496823c5c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Agronomy and Crop Science

In Food Science

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

Citations in the corpus

Greedy or needy? Land use and climate impacts of food in 2050 under different livestock futures (2017, background): “Multi-cropping has been highlighted as an underestimated option to increase yearly yields (Mauser et al., 2015; Ray and Foley, 2013).”
The growth and yield of a wet-seeded rice-ratoon rice system in central China (2017, background): “Future increases in rice production will have to depend on higher grain yield (Cassman et al., 2003) and more frequent harvests on the existing land (Ray and Foley, 2013).”
Addressing future trade-offs between biodiversity and cropland expansion to improve food security (2016, background): “…of fewer meat and dairy products, studies conclude that also the increase in global agricultural production is crucially important to meet the increasing demand (Garnett et al. 2013; Godfray et al. 2010; Gregory and George 2011; Gustavsson et al. 2011; Ray and Foley 2013; Mauser et al. 2015).”
Global change pressures on soils from land use and management (2016, background): “The global harvested area (i.e. counting each time an area is harvested) increased four times faster than total cropland area between 2000 and 2011 (Ray & Foley, 2013).”
Closing the yield gap while ensuring water sustainability (2018, methodology): “Published by IOPPublishing Ltd improving resource use efficiencies, and shifting diets (Rost et al 2009, Godfray et al 2010, Foley et al 2011, Tilman et al 2011, Cassidy et al 2013, Ray and Foley 2013).”
Mapping cropland-use intensity across Europe using MODIS NDVI time series (2016, background): “Such intensification could, for example, entail an optimization of crop rotations (e.g., less fallow) and higher resource efficiency (e.g., nutrient, water use) (Mueller et al 2012, Ray and Foley 2013, Siebert et al 2010b).”
Trends in Global Agricultural Land Use: Implications for Environmental Health and Food Security. (2018, background): “Coupled with new shorter-season varieties of crops, farmers were able to increase production through multiple cropping of existing cropland (34).”