Can Arable Land Alone Ensure Food Security? The Concept of Arable Land Equivalent Unit and Its Implications in Zhoushan City, China

Tan, Yinuo; Ju, He; Yu, Zhenning; Tan, Yonghua

doi:10.3390/su10041024

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Arable-land-equivalent unit (ALEU) refers to land with productivity equivalent to that from standard farmland. It is in use to normalize food production potentials of agricultural resources such as farmlands, forests, grasslands, and aquaculture ponds [34][35][36]. In this study, we take the unit area food output from Japonica rice cultivation as the reference value and use ALEU to measure the food productivity from different types of land use (or operation) models.…”

Section: Arable-land-equivalent Unit Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding aquatic animals, the densities of duck, catfish, turtle, and carp were 18, 300, 80, and 80 per Chinese mu (1 Chinese mu = 0.0667 ha), respectively, while for crayfish and loach they were 30.0 and 36.0 kilograms per Chinese mu, respectively. The team of Jizhou Ren, who is an expert in grassland agriculture, proposed the concept of the food-equivalent unit (FEU) [33][34][35]. The FEU is a comprehensive measurement based on calories and protein content, which adds up the multiplications of corrected coefficients (C H and C P ), calorie content (H), and protein content (P) in food, i.e., FEU = HC H + PC P .…”

Section: Experimental Rfcf Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluation and Screening of Co-Culture Farming Models in Rice Field Based on Food Productivity

Jin

Gao

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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Traditional farming practice of rice field co-culture is a time-tested example of sustainable agriculture, which increases food productivity of arable land with few adverse environmental impacts. However, the small-scale farming practice needs to be adjusted for modern agricultural production. Screening of rice field co-culture farming models is important in deciding the suitable model for industry-wide promotion. In this study, we aim to find the optimal rice field co-culture farming models for large-scale application, based on the notion of food productivity. We used experimental data from the Jiangsu Province of China and applied food-equivalent unit and arable-land-equivalent unit methods to examine applicable protocols for large-scale promotion of rice field co-culture farming models. Results indicate that the rice-loach and rice-catfish models achieve the highest food productivity; the rice-duck model increases the rice yield, while the rice-turtle and rice-crayfish models generate extra economic profits. Simultaneously considering economic benefits, staple food security, and regional food output, we recommend the rice-duck, rice-crayfish, and rice-catfish models. Simulating provincial promotion of the above three models, we conclude that food output increases from all three recommended models, as well as the land production capacity. The rice-catfish co-culture model has the most substantial food productivity. None of the three models threatens staple food security, as they do not compete for land resources with rice cultivation.

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Section: Arable-land-equivalent Unit Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Experimental Rfcf Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation and Screening of Co-Culture Farming Models in Rice Field Based on Food Productivity

Jin

Gao

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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“…Furthermore, because the policy allows the balancing to be carried out across regions, the regions with abundant cultivated land reserves (such as northeast and northwest China) are actually taking on more ecological risk resulting from the reclamation [8,19]. Despite this, most previous studies have only focused on the dynamic balance of cultivated lands in well-developed regions, which are dominated by occupation rather than reclamation [18][19][20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reclamation of Cultivated Land Reserves in Northeast China: Indigenous Ecological Insecurity Underlying National Food Security

Wang

Liu

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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The competition for land resources created by the need for food security and ecological security is intensifying globally. To resolve the issue of land scarcity in agriculture following rapid urbanization, China implemented its requisition–compensation balance policy of cultivated lands in 1997, the introduction of which consumed numerous areas of land, such as river shoal and bare land, through reclamation. Moreover, these reclaimed and newly cultivated lands were mainly distributed in the northern part of China. Most previous studies of this subject have only examined the overall balance of cultivated lands in well-developed regions, and there is a lack of knowledge about the indigenous gains and losses before and after reclamation in important areas such as northeast China. Therefore, this study selected two representative county-level units in northeast China as the study area to analyze the conversion of cultivated land reserves during 1996–2015, evaluate the performance of reclaimed cultivated lands in terms of quality and productivity and calculate reclamation-induced changes in ecosystem service value. The results indicated that by 2015 only 16.02% of the original cultivated land reserves remained unconverted; nearly 60% were reclaimed as cultivated lands and over 20% were converted to other land resources. River shoal and ruderal land were the primary resources for cultivated lands compensation, and marsh, bare land and saline-alkaline land were found to be converted the most thoroughly. The gain of 23018.55 ha reclaimed cultivated lands were of relatively inferior quality and lower productivity, contributing approximately 4.32% of total grain output. However, this modest gain was at the expense of a 768.03 million yuan ecosystem services loss, with regulating services and supporting services being undermined the most. We argue that even if northeast China continues to shoulder the responsibility of compensating for a majority of cultivated land losses, it still needs to carefully process reclamation and introduce practical measures to protect indigenous ecosystems, in order to better serve the local residents and ensure prolonged food security with sustainability.

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“…The Indonesian government has set a target of food self-sufficiency and becoming the world's food basket by 2045 [5]. As arable land is limited, one option to increase food production is to convert wetlands [6]. As an archipelago, Indonesia has 99,093 km of shoreline, the second longest in the world after Canada [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The scarcity of arable land in Indonesia means that wetlands are likely to be converted to agricultural use. The challenge is to do so both profitably and sustainably [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Framework for the Development of Wetland for Agricultural Use in Indonesia

2019

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Crop production needs to double to feed the world’s growing population. Indonesia, as the fourth most populated country in the world, needs to meet its food security challenge with a shrinking arable land area. Indonesia has over 34 million ha of swampland. The scarcity of arable land in Indonesia means wetlands are likely to be converted to agricultural use. The challenge is to both profitably and sustainably do so. This paper presents a framework for developing wetlands for food production, which includes (1) the characterization of land and problem of development; (2) analysis of historical development and lessons learned; (3) technology development; and (4) optimization of development. We analyze each of the components and its relation to regional economic growth and lessons learned. For successful future wetland development, three factors must be considered: Land-soil-water characterization, landscape and land use design, and community development. This framework can be adopted by other tropical areas for the development of wetlands.

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Can Arable Land Alone Ensure Food Security? The Concept of Arable Land Equivalent Unit and Its Implications in Zhoushan City, China

Cited by 9 publications

References 15 publications

Evaluation and Screening of Co-Culture Farming Models in Rice Field Based on Food Productivity

Evaluation and Screening of Co-Culture Farming Models in Rice Field Based on Food Productivity

Reclamation of Cultivated Land Reserves in Northeast China: Indigenous Ecological Insecurity Underlying National Food Security

A Framework for the Development of Wetland for Agricultural Use in Indonesia

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