Identifying resource-conscious and low-carbon agricultural development pathways through land use modelling.

Area of Science:

• Agricultural Science
• Environmental Science
• Optimization Modeling

Background:

• Increasing agricultural production to meet food demand in populous countries like India often exacerbates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, depletes natural resources, and complicates policy decisions.
• Agro-ecological heterogeneity and a growing carbon footprint present significant challenges for sustainable food production and resource management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the potential for increasing food production from existing agricultural land using low-carbon and resource-efficient methods.
• To develop and demonstrate a land use optimization model that balances calorie production objectives with GHG emission constraints across multiple spatial scales.

Main Methods:

• Development of a land use optimization model incorporating calorie production and GHG emission objectives, resource constraints, and food production targets.
• Application of the model to a case study in India, focusing on ten crops across two seasons and three food groups (cereals, legumes, oilseeds).
• Simulation of multiple scenarios: maximizing calorie production (national, group, crop levels) and minimizing GHG emissions (national, group, crop levels) with varying spatial constraints.

Main Results:

• Calorie production can increase by up to 11% with a 2.5% GHG emission mitigation under the 'Calories-nation' scenario.
• The 'Emissions-group' scenario achieved the highest emission reduction (approx. 30%) without compromising calorie production.
• Emission-reduction scenarios demonstrated potential savings of 14.8% in land and 18.2% in water; calorie-maximization scenarios spared up to 4.7% land and 6.5% water.
• Optimization identified specific crop substitution strategies, such as increasing oilseeds in Rajasthan and soybeans in Maharashtra.

Conclusions:

• Land use optimization models can identify effective crop redistribution strategies for enhancing food production and reducing environmental impact.
• State-level crop production targets alone may be insufficient without technological advancements; integrating improved technologies with crop redistribution is crucial for climate resilience.
• The proposed model can be adapted to incorporate climate change impacts, facilitating the design of future-proof land use systems.