How to Feed the World: Our Disastrous Land Use
A Plan for 8 Billion People and Beyond — Part 2
Two things are clear: firstly, the human population is still growing and should reach at least 9 billion before stabilising. Secondly, our planet is limited and can barely handle our pressure with the current numbers.
Quantitative aspect
Our biosphere has evolved over hundreds of millions of years and although it has a lot of redundancy built into it, we can only claim a limited portion to ourselves before the whole system tips over into a collapse and mass extinction. The ratio of used vs. unused land is thus very important for maintaining the planetary systems in balance. My opinion is that we are very near this limit or perhaps even over it already.
Currently, we are using about 0.7 ha of agricultural land per person. In simplified terms, this means that each human being needs a square of land that is about 85m on each side to live. That surface used to be a lot higher, but advancements in technology and science allow us to be much more efficient not.
