Enhancing water and land efficiency in agricultural production and trade between Central Asia and China

Besides posing soaring pressure on water and land resources, the ever-intensifying agricultural production redistributes these pressures trough increasingly intensive trade. Environmental consequences are compli-cated and unprecedented, and postulate thorough scrutiny. Little attention is paid to developing regions which are small nodes in terms of trade volume in global trade however of visible gaps in water and land productivities. Five Central Asian nations (CANs) have close trade activities with their neighbour China, but their agricultural production efficiency is strikingly low and the ecological environment is severely de -graded. Here we evaluate, among CANs and China, the water and land footprints, virtual water and land trades, as well as potentials in enhancing water and land efficiency related to sixteen primary crop products, four primary animal products, and twelve derivative products production and trade over the period 2000-2014. We find that the blue water footprint and land footprint per unit product in CANs were up to 61-and 17-times higher than in China. Through enhancing water and land efficiency without further inter-vention in water and land endowments, the scenario for CANs shows an additional food supply for feeding 387 million people or half the starving population in the world. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The ever-intensifying agricultural production redistributes pressures through increasingly intensive trade, with developing regions often overlooked despite visible gaps in water and land productivities. Close trade activities between Central Asian nations and China reveal strikingly low agricultural production efficiency and severe ecological degradation. By enhancing water and land efficiency, without further intervention in resources, Central Asian nations could potentially provide additional food supply for a significant portion of the starving population worldwide.