Impact of changes in diet on the availability of land, energy demand, and greenhouse gas emissions of agriculture

Background: Recent scientific investigations have revealed a correlation between nutrition habits and the environmental impacts of agriculture. So, it is obviously worthwhile to study what effects a change in diet has on land use patterns, energy demand, and greenhouse gas emissions of agricultural production. This study calculates the amount of energy and emission savings as well as changes in land use that would result from different scenarios underlying a change in diet. Methods: Based on the healthy eating recommendations of the German Nutrition Society, meat consumption in Austria should decrease by about 60%, and consumption of fruits and vegetables has to increase strongly. Results: This investigation showed that compliance with healthy eating guidelines leads to lower energy demand and a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to a decrease in livestock numbers. Furthermore, arable land and grassland no longer needed for animal feed production becomes redundant and can possibly be used for the production of raw materials for renewable energy. The scenario examination shows that in the self-sufficiency scenario and in the import/export scenario, up to 443,100 ha and about 208,800 ha, respectively, of arable land and grassland are released for non-food uses. The cumulative energy demand of agriculture is lower by up to 38%, and the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture decrease by up to 37% in these scenarios as against the reference situation. Conclusion: The land use patterns for the scenario demonstrate that animal feed production still takes up the largest share of agricultural land even though the extent of animal husbandry decreased considerably in the scenarios. © 2011 Fazeni and Steinmüller; licensee Springer.