China's food security threatened by soil degradation and biofuels production

摘要

We present a large scale assessment of the combined effects of soil degradation and biofuels production on long-term food security in China by using a web-based land evaluation system (http://weble.ugent.be) and grid datasets. Our results predict thatthe relationship between food supply and demand will turn from an 18% surplus in 2005 to 3-5%, 14-18% and 22-32% deficits by 2030-2050 under the zero-degradation (OxSD), business-as-usual (BAU) and double-degradation (2xSD) scenarios, respectively, if no harvests are to be diverted to produce biofuels, while this relationship will turn from a 17% surplus in 2005 to 14-17%, 22-32%o and 30-46% deficits by 2030-2050, respectively, should 10-15% of the total harvests be used for biofuels production. Technical countermeasures and policy interventions (cropland protection, agricultural investment, soil conservation, etc.) need to be enacted today in order to avoid food insecurity tomorrow.