Global impacts of agricultural production on terrestrial biodiversity: Quantifying biodiversity losses and transboundary effects

Agricultural production is a primary driver of degrading terrestrial biodiversity through crop cultivation and livestock grazing, which appropriates an extensive global land. These impacts may even go beyond the national territories and embody transboundary effects through international trade. This study utilizes the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) as a proxy to quantify terrestrial biodiversity loss associated with crop and livestock production. It allocates BII losses to individual crop and livestock commodities while assessing the spatial impacts of land conversion on biodiversity (measured in affected areas, km²), thereby enabling a more detailed biodiversity footprint analysis. The findings highlight that agricultural production induces approximately 2.6 million km² of BII loss (1.9% global land), mostly from Asian and African continents, which are evenly dominated by crops and livestock. The crops and livestock vary by region, but cereal crops and meat cattle are the primary contributors to biodiversity loss worldwide. BII losses from crops have been steadily increasing, while those from livestock have been decreasing since the beginning of the last decade. The standardized BII loss allocated to total production reveals that the production in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Western Asia, and Russia implies higher biodiversity loss in their productions than in other regions. The FAO international trade data between countries is incorporated to indicate that about 10.5% of the total BII losses are linked to international trade in 2020. Asia and Southern Africa are net importers of biodiversity losses, while North America, Australia and New Zealand, South America, and Eastern Europe are the net exporters of biodiversity losses through their crop and livestock commodities.

This study is the preliminary effort to analyze biodiversity loss embodied in international trade before it will be comprehensively tracked by multi-regional input-output analysis. The research findings highlight the significant global impact of agricultural production on terrestrial biodiversity, which emphasizes the need for targeted regional and international policies to mitigate biodiversity loss, particularly through sustainable agricultural practices and responsible trade frameworks.