Crop switching can enhance environmental sustainability and farmer incomes in China
| Author(s) | Xie, Wei | |
| Author(s) | Zhu, Anfeng | |
| Author(s) | Ali, Tariq | |
| Author(s) | Zhang, Zhengtao | |
| Author(s) | Chen, Xiaoguang | |
| Author(s) | Wu, Feng | |
| Author(s) | Huang, Jikun | |
| Author(s) | Davis, Kyle Frankel | |
| Date Accessioned | 2023-06-09T18:45:12Z | |
| Date Available | 2023-06-09T18:45:12Z | |
| Publication Date | 2023-03-16 | |
| Description | This article was originally published in Nature. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05799-x. This article will be embargoed until 09/16/2023. | |
| Abstract | Achieving food-system sustainability is a multidimensional challenge. In China, a doubling of crop production since 1990 has compromised other dimensions of sustainability1,2. Although the country is promoting various interventions to enhance production efficiency and reduce environmental impacts3, there is little understanding of whether crop switching can achieve more sustainable cropping systems and whether coordinated action is needed to avoid tradeoffs. Here we combine high-resolution data on crop-specific yields, harvested areas, environmental footprints and farmer incomes to first quantify the current state of crop-production sustainability. Under varying levels of inter-ministerial and central coordination, we perform spatial optimizations that redistribute crops to meet a suite of agricultural sustainable development targets. With a siloed approach—in which each government ministry seeks to improve a single sustainability outcome in isolation—crop switching could realize large individual benefits but produce tradeoffs for other dimensions and between regions. In cases of central coordination—in which tradeoffs are prevented—we find marked co-benefits for environmental-impact reductions (blue water (−4.5% to −18.5%), green water (−4.4% to −9.5%), greenhouse gases (GHGs) (−1.7% to −7.7%), fertilizers (−5.2% to −10.9%), pesticides (−4.3% to −10.8%)) and increased farmer incomes (+2.9% to +7.5%). These outcomes of centrally coordinated crop switching can contribute substantially (23–40% across dimensions) towards China’s 2030 agricultural sustainable development targets and potentially produce global resource savings. This integrated approach can inform feasible targeted agricultural interventions that achieve sustainability co-benefits across several dimensions. | |
| Sponsor | W.X. and A.Z. thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (grant nos. 71873009, 71922002 and 72261147472) and China Grain Research and Training Center of the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration for financial support. T.A. was supported by the Jiangxi Agricultural University’s research fund. Z.Z. thanks the NSFC (grant no. 42271076) and the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (grant no. 2019QZKK0906) for financial support. X.C. thanks the NSFC (grant no. 72061147001) for financial support. F.W. thanks the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant nos. XDA23100403 and XDA23070402), the Third Xinjiang Scientific Expedition and Research Program (grant no. 2021xjkk0903) and the NSFC (grant nos. 41971233 and 72221002) for financial support. J.H. acknowledges the NSFC (grant no. 71934003) for financial support. K.F.D. was supported in part by the University of Delaware General University Research fund. We also thank Y. Lei, M. Fan and L. Zhang from China Agricultural University for the discussions on the method framework of this study and Q. Deng from Beijing Normal University and M. Zhu and J. Zong from Peking University for their assistance with this paper. | |
| Citation | Xie, W., Zhu, A., Ali, T. et al. Crop switching can enhance environmental sustainability and farmer incomes in China. Nature 616, 300–305 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05799-x | |
| ISSN | 1476-4687 | |
| URL | https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/32843 | |
| Language | en_US | |
| Publisher | Nature | |
| Keywords | zero hunger | |
| Keywords | decent work and economic growth | |
| Title | Crop switching can enhance environmental sustainability and farmer incomes in China | |
| Type | Article |
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