Around 300,000 square kilometres of fertile cropland will be lost by the year 2030 as a result of rapid urbanisation, according to the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin. The loss of cropland will be especially severe in Asia, which has the highest absolute growth of the urban population, and Africa, which has the highest urbanisation rates.

For their research, the researchers used land-use data on global croplands and crop yields and calculated the productivity of this land using the aggregated production of the 16 most important food crops, including maize, rice, soybeans and wheat. They then compared this data with projections of urban area expansion.

According to the study, the land-use conflict between urbanisation and food production can differ markedly from one global region to the next.

“A lot depends on the urbanisation dynamics of the individual countries,” said lead author Bren d’Amour. In India, for example, the loss of cropland is less pronounced than in other regions because it has slower, and smaller scale, urbanisation process.

“Policy-makers at the municipal level are now called on to take action. Their time has come, since urban planning is now part and parcel of world policy,” said Felix Creutzig, head of the MCC Working Group on Land Use, Infrastructure and Transport.

“Urban planners can contribute to preventing small farmers from losing their livelihoods. Spatially efficient urbanisation could help to retain the existing agricultural system while continuing to provide small farmers with access to the urban food market.”