Agricultural Land Management to Meet Future Global Food Demand

Abstract

In the 21st century, global agriculture is facing two major competing issues, urgently calling for us to investigate the nexus of land–food–climate. First, food production will need to substantially increase to meet the growing demand of a larger and wealthier population. Moreover, climate change, urbanization, and several other drivers are posing challenges to food production. Farmers can increase food production either by expanding their land area or by raising existing agricultural land productivity. Given the limited cultivatable land, and high socio-economic and ecosystem costs of clearing more land for agriculture, the prospect of expanding agricultural land is almost non-existent. Therefore, it is vital to raise crop yields on existing farmlands by adopting sustainable land management practices. Several social, economic, demographic, and biophysical factors can affect the implementation of land management practices in different agricultural production systems. Consequently, the design and implementation of location-specific land management practices that can enhance crop yields while minimizing adverse environmental impacts are important and require further research and investigation. In this Special Issue, we invited manuscripts that address research issues including the following: Sustainable intensification of agricultural land; Modeling agricultural systems and food production; Design and implementation of land management practices; Economic analysis of agricultural interventions; Adoption and diffusion of agricultural technologies; Environmental benefits of land management practices.