No Room To Grow

A look at how we have changed the planet to feed ourselves – and why we can't keep doing it the same way in the future.

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A world map showing land used for agriculture in 10000 B.C.E. Each cell has a value ranging from 0 to 86 square kilometers. The values are visualized with a linear color scale from dark green, which represents 0.02 kilometers, to light green, which represents 86.

Global population

7.4 B

As the world’s population has grown, more land on Earth has been converted to fields and pastures. It’s a cycle: More food production enables further population growth.

Humanity has been able to keep pace through technological advancements: If today’s global bounty were distributed equally, it would provide 2,900 daily calories for each person – more than enough for their dietary needs.

But this success comes at a cost.

We're running out of suitable land to convert to new fields and pastures.

Agriculture has reshaped our planet.

It’s a transformation that began around 10000 B.C.E.

That’s when humans started selecting crops and animals they could cultivate for food, setting aside land for this purpose.

Settling in one area allowed the first farmers to pass along techniques to following generations.

The two main routes to better food production were established: increasing the amount of land that could be farmed and making that land more productive.

Improvements in both areas allowed for larger populations and food surpluses, giving rise to new social structures.

The world's first major cities arose in Asia.

They drove farmland expansion and technological innovations, including irrigation.

The world’s population increased eightfold from 4000 B.C.E. to 1 C.E.

As the population grew, agricultural land continued to grow with it.

By 1700, Earth had about 600 million people and just under 10 million square kilometers of agricultural land.

But massive growth was coming — in both population and farmland.

Technological advancements in some parts of the world — sometimes called the Second Agricultural Revolution — set the stage.

From 1700 to 1950, the living population grew by about 2 billion people.

That rapid growth put a strain on many food systems.

But the so-called Green Revolution allowed humanity to keep pace.

Farming technologies such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides, high-yield seed varieties and mechanization spread to more places around the world. Global food production increased to match population growth. Deaths from starvation went down.

In just 60 years, the population grew by about 4 billion.

Today, demand for food is still rising fast. The United Nations estimates we'll need to produce 50% more food, livestock fodder and biofuel than we did in 2012.

But we can't simply increase agricultural land as we have been for thousands of years, scientists say.

From 1950...

...to 2010, farmland increased from 38 million square kilometers to 48 million. Repeating that kind of growth today would require cutting down more forests in tropical areas.

We can’t make our farmland more productive using the same methods either.

Many of those tactics resulted in soil degradation, chemical fertilizer overuse and greenhouse gas emissions.

We have to find ways to feed the growing population without clearing more land.

But where to start?

As nations have ramped up food production, one category stands out for its nutritional significance as well as its impact on the environment: animals.

In 1961, there were about 61.5 grams of protein available daily per person globally, and 32% came from animal sources. In 2020, 84.5 grams were available, with about 40% coming from animals.

This global shift toward more animal food products had a significant environmental cost.

Livestock take up land, and the animals need to be fed. Some eat grains, which need cropland to grow. Others, like cattle and sheep, can eat grasses in pastures. That doesn’t require additional cropland, but the animals nevertheless emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And in some places, forests are being cut down to create these pastures.

So what can humanity do? In this series, The Associated Press shows you some of the possible solutions, including better ways to raise beef and farm fish – and even ways to create meat without animals.