Whether grain, vegetables or rubber: Global trade in agricultural goods will probably continue to grow in the coming decades. A recent study shows that export trade is already directly related to declining biodiversity. Another problem here: The ecological effects are mainly felt in the producing countries, while the consumers are less affected.
According to current forecasts, demand for food and other agricultural products will increase by 35 to 50 percent by 2050 compared to 2010. On the one hand, this is due to the forecast growth in the world population, but also to structural changes such as urbanization, increasing per capita income and the associated changes in the composition of the diet.
“Increasing demand for food and other agricultural products will put additional pressure on ecosystems around the world. The United Nations expect the area used for agriculture to increase by an estimated 100 million hectares by 2050,” explains Florian Schwarzmüller from the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt. “The impact of this agricultural expansion on biodiversity is enormous – already today, more than 60 percent of the species currently classified as threatened or threatened on the Red List are directly affected by agricultural activities.”
223 countries, 119 products
Together with his colleague Thomas Kastner, Schwarzmüller has now investigated how large the concrete effects of global trade in agricultural products are on biological diversity. They used global trade data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and were thus able to create national trade profiles for a total of 223 countries, 119 goods produced and over a period of 15 years.
“The evaluation of the data shows that agricultural areas are constantly expanding, especially in tropical and subtropical countries – at the expense of areas with great biological diversity,” summarizes Schwarzmüller. “These countries export the goods all over the world – even in regions that suffer little local loss of natural habitats, such as Western Europe, North America and the Middle East. However, via this connection, importing countries are still contributing to the progressive loss of natural habitats that are so important for biodiversity – far away from their own borders.”
Direct link between export and species loss
In their study, the scientists were also able to show that products such as coffee, palm oil, rubber and soybeans in particular have a very high export share on the one hand and are enormously harmful to local biodiversity on the other. According to the researchers, this is also due to the fact that these products are grown in countries with habitats that were originally very species-rich, such as rainforests. For example, Paraguay exports 98 percent of the soybeans it grows, Malaysia 73 percent of the palm oil it produces, and Ivory Coast 99 percent of the cocoa that it grows.
Schwarzmüller and Kastner also showed that there is a direct connection between increased cultivation for export, the expansion of the required agricultural area and the loss of habitats. The area under cultivation used only for export goods rose from 17 percent in 2000 to 23.5 percent of the agricultural area used worldwide in 2013. The scientists also found that, for example, the USA, the EU and Japan generate 44 percent of their respective ecological footprints through imports from other countries, and the regions of Western Europe and North America together are responsible for 48 percent of the decline in bird biodiversity.
imbalance between sufferers and consumers
“This development, together with the increase in domestic demand, leads to a number of problematic developments, such as the reduction in the habitat of animal and plant species,” says Schwarzmüller. “It also reinforces the imbalance between the countries that suffer from environmental problems and those who benefit from the export products as consumers.” According to the researcher, the results of the study could help to correct this imbalance. “Our analyzes can be used to develop new national-level biodiversity indicators that explicitly take into account the impact of international trade. Such metrics can support cross-border agreements to protect biological diversity,” explains Schwarzmüller.
Source: Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museums; Specialist article: Sustainability Science, doi: 10.1007/s11625-022-01138-7