Dynamic changes in arable land requirements for food consumption in China

With the development of China's social economy and improvement of living standard of the people, food consumption level and structure in the country have changed greatly. The ability to guarantee land resources, closely related with food consumption, has also attracted more attention in international community. Vast amounts of arable lands are needed to produce food, but land resources suitable for production of crops in China are very limited. Therefore, in order to evaluate food consumption and its impact on the demand of agricultural land resources in China, we first assessed the dynamic changes in arable land requirements for food consumption in China for the 1961-2013. Then we quantitatively examined the contributions of population growth, dietary change and technological change to land requirements for food (LRF) based on the LMDI decomposition model. The results indicated that dietary pattern of Chinese residents changed apparently to nutrient-rich from 1961 to 2013, people gradually consumed more animal food and vegetable oil other than traditional plant-based food. This induced obvious increment in LRF, which was 1.05×10⁸ hm²·a^-1 in 1961, 1.75×10⁸ hm²·a^-1 in 2013. China increasingly depended on imports to meet LRF according to the analysis of domestic production and import of food. Remarkably, this path of dependence risked the vulnerability to volatile global food prices. LMDI decomposition results revealed that population and dietary pattern were equal in contribution to LRF increase, while scientific and technological advancement contributed relatively less to decrease in LRF, which were not enough to make up for the increases in population and dietary change. And dietary change rather than the rapid growth of population had become the most critical variable determinant of LRF in China for the foreseeable future. Additionally, we found that the development in underlying factors of LRF was not often linear. Caution also seemed warranted in considerations of future LRF in China based on sequential trend assumptions. In summary, the LRF increased gradually from 1961 to 2013, and dietary pattern of China's residents was the key factor affecting LRF.