The state of the transition
Transforming the global agrifood system to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels; end soil, water, and ecosystem degradation; adapt to our changing climate; and sustainably and nutritiously feed and support a growing population requires several interconnected shifts. Before narrowing the focus of this report to consider just reducing enteric emissions from livestock and lowering emissions from fertilizers, we review progress in the agrifood system against the four breakthrough principles.
While crop yields and ruminant meat productivity per hectare increased slightly between 2021 and 2022, based on calculations from FAOSTAT, recent trends since 2018 for both indicators are off track from the pace of growth needed for 2030, as shown in the 2023 State of Climate Action report (World Resources Institute 2023). Total agricultural output has risen steadily over the last decade, reaching US$44.2 trillion in 2019, the last available year (Our World in Data 2024). Breaking down agricultural output by crop type, the production of wheat and maize – both requiring high fertilizer inputs – has also climbed. Wheat production reached 808.44 million tons in 2022, a 37.6 percent increase from 2000 (Our World in Data 2024). Meanwhile, maize production rose to 1.16 billion tons in 2022, an 86.8 percent increase since 2000 (Our World in Data 2024). However, there are insufficient data to assess progress made in productivity and the average income of small-scale producers (SDG indicators 2.3.1 and 2.3.2, respectively) (FAOSTAT 2024).
World total emissions from agrifood systems remained constant from 2019 to 2021 at about 16 Gt CO2 equivalent but exhibited a 14 percent growth since 2001. The contribution to global mean surface temperature rise from agriculture and land use is also increasing, with approximately 0.6°C of the temperature climb attributable to this sector in 2022 (Friedlingstein et al., 2023).
The planet’s land area is 13 billion hectares. The agricultural area accounts for 37 percent of this – a total of 4.8 billion hectares. Global agricultural area is divided into categories: cropland (33 percent of the total agricultural land area) and pastures (67 percent) (Our World in Data 2024).
Global cropland – land used to grow crops, excluding pasture used for livestock grazing – is increasing (Our World in Data 2024). Over the past two decades, global cropland expansion has accelerated, with a near doubling of the annual expansion rate, most notably in Africa (Potapov et al. 2021). Agricultural expansion continues to drive deforestation globally and particularly in the tropics (Pendrill et al. 2022) – half of this new cropland area replaced natural vegetation and tree cover (Potapov et al. 2021). This worldwide expansion will have to cease if the global target to end deforestation (with resulting biodiversity protection, as codified in the Convention on Biological Diversity) by 2030 is to be met. If warming is not limited to 1.5°C, climate change will likely become the dominant cause of biodiversity loss in the coming decades (WWF 2022). Between 1970 and 2018, the planet experienced an average decline of 69 percent in the relative abundance of monitored wildlife populations (WWF 2022).
Meanwhile, the extent of global pasture has been on a slow decline since around 2000, taking up an estimated 3.2 billion hectares in 2023. This represents 66.6 percent of total agricultural land, a 3.7 percent decrease from pasture’s turn-of-the-century height (Taylor and Rising 2021; FAO 2024; HYDE 2023; Our World in Data 2024). This pasture contraction is not outweighed by cropland expansion for animal feed. While cropland for cattle feed has increased by around 25 million hectares, the total agricultural land devoted to producing meat and milk from ruminants has shrunk by approximately 50 million hectares since 2000 (Mottet et al. 2017; Alexander et al. 2015). We are past “peak pasture,” despite global meat consumption rising, for several reasons. Firstly, there has been a shift in how meat is produced and what types of meat we eat. We now consume more pork and chicken, which are not fed on pasture. Secondly, a lot of beef production has moved from open pasture grazing toward more intensive farming methods, which has spared land. It is important to note that while grain-fed livestock is more land-efficient than pasture-fed livestock, biodiversity is often higher on grazing lands than on intensive croplands. Notably, a peak in global pastureland does not mean it has peaked everywhere; in tropical regions – which are richest in biodiversity and carbon – it continues to rise, often at the expense of carbon-rich habitats (Our World in Data 2024; Godde et al. 2018; Blaustein-Rejto 2019). The expansion of grazing land for beef production is still the leading driver of global (and tropical) deforestation (Ritchie 2021).
The level of water stress worldwide – calculated as the proportion of freshwater withdrawn from all available freshwater resources – has risen by 1.2 percent since 2015, to 18.2 percent in 2022 (FAO 2024). Global water stress specifically from agriculture stands at 13 percent in 2021 (the most recent year with available data at the time of publication). However, this masks substantial regional variations, and is expected to rise as climate change renders certain extreme weather events more frequent. Agricultural irrigation accounts for 70 percent of water use worldwide (OECD 2024), and agricultural water use efficiency (value of output per cubic meter of water) is one of the “worst performers” of the SDG indicators, having deteriorated since the baseline year (FAO 2024).
The lack of universally applicable indicators for measuring adaptation and resilience to climate change for smallholder producers is a concern. Indicator SDG 5.a.1 – (a) related to the percentage of people with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land (out of total agricultural population) by sex is a good proxy indicator of adaptation and resilience, as land and asset ownership is often positively correlated with better adaptive capacities. However, reporting on global progress in this indicator is impossible due to data unavailability (FAO 2024). Similarly, the SDG 2.3.2 indicator on the average income of small-scale food producers by sex and indigenous status, while a promising indicator of adaptation and resilience, does not have comparable global data to measure year-on-year progress (FAO 2024). Direct agricultural loss attributed to disasters is an indicator under the Sendai Framework, and all countries report data to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). This indicator works well to measure the negative impact of hazards on adaptation and resilience, but the downside is that it also captures non-climatic hazards. Over the last 30 years, an estimated US$3.8 trillion worth of crops and livestock production has been lost due to disaster events, corresponding to an average loss of US$123 billion annually, or 5 percent of annual global agricultural GDP (FAO 2023).
In sum, the most recent year of data collection reveals a uniform lack of progress across the metrics selected in last year’s report.