Global food trade alleviates transgressions of planetary boundaries at the national scale

Xiawei Liao; Ao Liu; Li Chai

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107794

Global food trade alleviates transgressions of planetary boundaries at the national scale

iScience. 2023 Aug 30;26(10):107794. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107794. eCollection 2023 Oct 20.

Authors

Xiawei Liao¹, Ao Liu², Li Chai^{2

3

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Affiliations

¹ Bay Area International Business School, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai 519087, China.
² College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China.
³ International College Beijing, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China.
⁴ National Innovation Center for Digital Fishery, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China.

Abstract

Food systems are among the leading causes for transgression of planetary boundaries globally, which define the safe operating space for humanity. We quantify unsustainable environmental impacts of food systems, indicated by the transgression of national-scale planetary boundaries (i.e., the safe operating space for food production in each country), from both production and consumption perspectives of 189 countries/regions around the world. A multi-regional input-output model is used to map the global transfers of the national-scale transgression of planetary boundaries, including freshwater use, land change, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus). Our results show that China is a major global unsustainable water and nitrogen exporter and an unstable land and phosphorus importer. This means that water and nitrogen uses in China are used to support food demands in other countries, and food consumption in China requires unsustainable land and phosphorus uses elsewhere. In contrast, the US is a major exporter of unsustainable water, land, and nitrogen uses but only an importer of unsustainable phosphorus for food consumption. Globally, compared to a counterfactual scenario where there is no food trade among any countries, food trade saves massive transgressions of planetary boundaries (270 km³ of water, 18 million tons of nitrogen, 7 million tons of phosphorus, and 5,431 million km² of land). Alleviation of national-scale planetary boundary transgression has been achieved primarily in the US, China, Saudi Arabia, etc., while aggravation was incurred in Pakistan, Australia, Argentina, and so forth.

Keywords: Agricultural land; Environmental science; Food policy; Sustainability aspects of food production.