Acres & Assets| Exploring the Vital Role of Agricultural Land in Feeding the World | Our World's Green Expanse

If you drive across any place in the grain belt this summer, you might get the impression that there is a limitless amount of farmland as you gaze at mile after mile of corn, soybeans, or wheat going by your window.  Or it could be the miles and miles of grazing land outside your window driving through the Great Plains.  In total across the globe, less than 10% of the land surface of the earth is used to produce food, fuels, energy, and fiber.  Agricultural land is vitally important to every person in the world.  

The information below from Our World In Data graphically depicts the small portion of the earth’s land area that is used to produce the food we live on.  Only 7% of the earth’s land mass is planted to crops which include cereal grains, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and non-food crops such as cotton or ones used for biofuels.  A much larger amount of land is used to produce meat and dairy products.  This area includes grazing land and cropland used to raise livestock feed and totals 27% of the earth’s land mass. 

Much of the world depends on a plant-based diet as shown in th

e last two lines above.  These diets are mainly dependent on rice and wheat usage along with fruits and vegetables.  The vast amount of the world’s land used for cereal production is evidenced in the graphic below.  Three main crop types use the majority of the cropland in the world.  Cereals, course grains such as corn and sorghum, and oil crops such as soybeans, canola, and palm oil cover vastly more area than vegetable, fruit, nut, and other crops. 

The amount of crop and livestock land varies widely among countries.  For instance, 44% of the land in the U.S. is classified as agricultural.  Pasture land is the larger share at 27% while cropland makes up 17% of the land in this country.  In contrast, Ukraine has 71% of its land used for agriculture (prior to the war) with the majority in cropland at 56%.  China, as one of the most populous countries in the world, has a higher percentage of agricultural land than the U.S. at 56% with a smaller percentage in cropland at 12.6%.

Agricultural land is critically important in today’s and tomorrow’s world as we depend on a small portion of the globe’s surface to produce the food we eat, the fiber we use, and the energy we have come to depend on.  

Ag land in the U.S. is especially valued because of stable ownership and title laws, productive soils, better water resources than in many countries, the best farmers, and the well developed supply and production channels.