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Potential net primary production footprint of agriculture: A global trade analysis
Author(s) -
Weinzettel Jan,
Vačkářů Dava,
Medková Helena
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of industrial ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.377
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1530-9290
pISSN - 1088-1980
DOI - 10.1111/jiec.12850
Subject(s) - primary production , per capita , agriculture , ecological footprint , carbon footprint , ecosystem services , virtual water , environmental science , agricultural productivity , agricultural economics , natural resource economics , ecosystem , sustainability , business , environmental protection , geography , greenhouse gas , economics , water scarcity , ecology , population , demography , archaeology , sociology , biology
Agriculture is one of the most important sources of biomass for human society but increasingly contributes to anthropogenic degradation of ecosystems through negative impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, climate change, and ecosystem services. Here we estimate NPP pot agricultural footprint, that is, the level of appropriation of potential net primary production (NPP pot ) by global cropland and human‐made pastures from the consumer responsibility (footprint) perspective and reveal the role of international trade. To quantify the NPP pot agricultural footprint, we utilize environmentally extended multi‐regional input–output analysis to attribute the terrestrial potential NPP altered by global cropland and human‐made pastures to the final consumers responsible for pulling the supply chains. We identify the NPP pot of geographically specific cropland area of 186 agricultural crops in 236 countries and we track each of those crops through the global web of international trade and supply chains to the point of final consumption. We show that human society appropriates 20% (13 petagrams of carbon per year) of global potential net primary production by the transformation of natural ecosystems into cropland and human‐made pastures. International trade accounts for 23% of global NPP pot footprint of agriculture. While the two and half billion people living in China and India (the two countries with lowest NPP pot agricultural footprint per capita) appropriate about 16% of the global NPP pot agricultural footprint of cropland and human‐made pastures, the same share is appropriated by only 360 million people living in countries with the highest per capita footprint.