Does Mexico have the agricultural land resources to feed its population with a healthy and sustainable diet

Reaching healthy and sustainable diets for all peoplewith theworld's limited resources is one of the biggest challenges of humanity. The Healthy Reference Diet (HRD) is a recent proposal by the Eat-Lancet Commission for addressing this problem. Mexico has a high burden of obesity and persistent malnutrition. Recent national policies have focused on different strategies to transformthe food systemwhich include designing newdietary guidelines using the HRD adapted for the Mexican context and supporting small farmers to reduce food imports. The aimof the paper is to explore whether Mexico has enough land resources to produce food for a healthy and sustainable diet for its population, with no international trade, and what changes are needed to reach this in terms of diets, the food system, and in land use. Four scenarios are explored for changing the food systemto reduce agricultural land use. The results show that Mexico has enough agricultural land to produce food for all its population to ensure healthy and sustainable diets with the current food supply chain. A healthy and sustainable diet demands 20 % to 50 % less agricultural land, depending on the type of dietary recommendation, than the present average diet of the Mexican population. But changes are needed in the food system in terms of land use such as exchanging pasture for cropland and changing the type of crop production like reducing cropland for sugar cane and feed for livestock, and increasing cropland for legumes and nuts. Furthermore, reducing losses in the supply chain and increasing crop yields reduces considerably the demand of agricultural land. Further research is needed to explore the socioeconomic issues and policies for reaching these changes. The insights of this paper should be considered when designing policy strategies and recommendations to reach a sustainable food system. (c) 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study explores whether Mexico has enough land resources to provide healthy and sustainable diets for its population and suggests changes in the food system and land use. The results indicate that Mexico has sufficient agricultural land to meet the population's needs, but changes in land use, reducing supply chain losses, and increasing crop yields are necessary.