The food on our plates has a footprint. Every bite of food we consume represents the environmental impact of all the resources used to produce that food. Land is foremost among those resources. As food is transported from farm to fork, the land used to grow the food is ‘virtually transported’ along with it. Depending on what you’re eating, one bite might have a potpourri of virtually embedded land supporting a wide diversity of wild plants and animals.
That wild biodiversity is under threat from the production and consumption of global food systems. Expanding agricultural land is pushing biodiversity past a safe limit. Some species may already be ‘walking dead’, doomed to extinction because they no longer have a habitat large enough to avoid a population crash.
In collaboration with NASA, researchers from universities across the United States are undertaking complex geospatial statistics to closely examine these future biodiversity impacts. Similar efforts around the world are leading some governments, including the United States, to set priorities to protect land within their borders.
