Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
    • Front Matter Portal
    • Journal Club
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
Research Articles

Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land

Paul C. West, Holly K. Gibbs, Chad Monfreda, John Wagner, Carol C. Barford, Stephen R. Carpenter, and Jonathan A. Foley
  1. aCenter for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53726;
  2. bCenter for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706;
  3. cProgram on Food Security and the Environment (FSE), The Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
  4. dConsortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (CSPO), Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287;
  5. eWisconsin Program, The Nature Conservancy, Madison, WI 53703; and
  6. fInstitute on the Environment (IonE), University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108

See allHide authors and affiliations

PNAS November 16, 2010 107 (46) 19645-19648; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1011078107
Paul C. West
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: pcwest@wisc.edu
Holly K. Gibbs
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Chad Monfreda
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
John Wagner
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Carol C. Barford
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Stephen R. Carpenter
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jonathan A. Foley
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  1. Edited by Ruth S. DeFries, Columbia University, New York, NY, and approved October 1, 2010 (received for review July 28, 2010).

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Expanding croplands to meet the needs of a growing population, changing diets, and biofuel production comes at the cost of reduced carbon stocks in natural vegetation and soils. Here, we present a spatially explicit global analysis of tradeoffs between carbon stocks and current crop yields. The difference among regions is striking. For example, for each unit of land cleared, the tropics lose nearly two times as much carbon (∼120 tons·ha−1 vs. ∼63 tons·ha−1) and produce less than one-half the annual crop yield compared with temperate regions (1.71 tons·ha−1·y−1 vs. 3.84 tons·ha−1·y−1). Therefore, newly cleared land in the tropics releases nearly 3 tons of carbon for every 1 ton of annual crop yield compared with a similar area cleared in the temperate zone. By factoring crop yield into the analysis, we specify the tradeoff between carbon stocks and crops for all areas where crops are currently grown and thereby, substantially enhance the spatial resolution relative to previous regional estimates. Particularly in the tropics, emphasis should be placed on increasing yields on existing croplands rather than clearing new lands. Our high-resolution approach can be used to determine the net effect of local land use decisions.

  • cropland expansion
  • deforestation
  • greenhouse gases
  • ecosystem services
  • land use change

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: pcwest{at}wisc.edu.
  • Author contributions: P.C.W., H.K.G., C.M., C.C.B., S.R.C., and J.A.F. designed research; P.C.W., C.M., and J.W. performed research; P.C.W., H.K.G., and J.W. analyzed data; and P.C.W., H.K.G., C.M., J.W., C.C.B., S.R.C., and J.A.F. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1011078107/-/DCSupplemental.

View Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land
Paul C. West, Holly K. Gibbs, Chad Monfreda, John Wagner, Carol C. Barford, Stephen R. Carpenter, Jonathan A. Foley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2010, 107 (46) 19645-19648; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1011078107

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Trading carbon for food: Global comparison of carbon stocks vs. crop yields on agricultural land
Paul C. West, Holly K. Gibbs, Chad Monfreda, John Wagner, Carol C. Barford, Stephen R. Carpenter, Jonathan A. Foley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2010, 107 (46) 19645-19648; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1011078107
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Article Classifications

  • Biological Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 107 (46)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Reflection of clouds in the still waters of Mono Lake in California.
Inner Workings: Making headway with the mysteries of life’s origins
Recent experiments and simulations are starting to answer some fundamental questions about how life came to be.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Radoslaw Lecyk.
Depiction of the sun's heliosphere with Voyager spacecraft at its edge.
News Feature: Voyager still breaking barriers decades after launch
Launched in 1977, Voyagers 1 and 2 are still helping to resolve past controversies even as they help spark a new one: the true shape of the heliosphere.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Drop of water creates splash in a puddle.
Journal Club: Heavy water tastes sweeter
Heavy hydrogen makes heavy water more dense and raises its boiling point. It also appears to affect another characteristic long rumored: taste.
Image credit: Shutterstock/sl_photo.
Mouse fibroblast cells. Electron bifurcation reactions keep mammalian cells alive.
Exploring electron bifurcation
Jonathon Yuly, David Beratan, and Peng Zhang investigate how electron bifurcation reactions work.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Panda bear hanging in a tree
How horse manure helps giant pandas tolerate cold
A study finds that giant pandas roll in horse manure to increase their cold tolerance.
Image credit: Fuwen Wei.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Subscribers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Cozzarelli Prize
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates
  • FAQs
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Rights & Permissions
  • About
  • Contact

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490