The expansion of modern agriculture and global biodiversity decline: an integrated assessment

Bruno Lanz, Simon Dietz and Tim Swanson

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The world is banking on a major increase in food production, if the dietary needs and food preferences of an increasing, and increasingly rich, population are to be met. This requires the further expansion of modern agriculture, but modern agriculture rests on a small number of highly productive crops and its expansion has led to a significant loss of global biodiversity. Ecologists have shown that biodiversity loss results in lower plant productivity, while agricultural economists have linked biodiversity loss on farms with increasing variability of crop yields, and sometimes lower mean yields. In this paper we consider the macro-economic consequences of the continued expansion of particular forms of intensive, modern agriculture, with a focus on how the loss of biodiversity affects food production. We employ a quantitative, structurally estimated model of the global economy, which jointly determines economic growth, population and food demand, agricultural innovations and land conversion. We show that even small effects of agricultural expansion on productivity via biodiversity loss might be sufficient to warrant a moratorium on further land conversion.

Keywords: agricultural productivity; biodiversity; endogenous growth; food security; land conversion; population (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published in Ecological Economics, 1, February, 2018, 144, pp. 260-277. ISSN: 0921-8009

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/84194/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Expansion of Modern Agriculture and Global Biodiversity Decline: An Integrated Assessment (2018)
Working Paper: The expansion of modern agriculture and global biodiversity decline: An integrated assessment (2017)
Working Paper: The expansion of modern agriculture and global biodiversity decline: an integrated assessment (2016)
Working Paper: The expansion of modern agriculture and global biodiversity decline: An integrated assessment (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:84194

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().