The Swedish foodprint

Food production capacity in the world may be approaching limits, while population continues to increase. Improving living standards also tend to change consumption patterns to be more demanding on resources. There is a link between resources used and amount of arable land needed for food production. The more, mostly non-renewable, resources we use, the less agricultural land is needed. However, this study stresses that food production is dependent also on other land, in addition to agricultural land, for environmental support. The term foodprint was introduced as an attempt to visualize our dependency on resources, mainly land area and ecosystem services, for our food consumption. The foodshed approach has been used together with footprinting methodology and a systems ecology approach. In this thesis the food system is considered in a holistic way, respecting all contributions, by man as well as nature, supporting food consumption. The foodprint is made up of direct and semi-direct agricultural area and appropriated indirect support area. Direct land area used for food consumption in Sweden for 1997-2000 was on average approximately 3.7 million ha or 0.41 ha per capita. Semi-direct land (fallow land) use for the same period was 260 000 ha. A modified consumption pattern would decrease the agricultural area required by 14%. The indirect land use for ecosystem support was estimated at 3.7 to 10.8 million ha, or 0.41 to 1.2 ha per capita, depending on approach used, with around 19 000 ha of degraded land, equal to 0.002 ha per capita. An emergy calculation further develops the foodprint approach and comprises all resource use, including historical. An emergy footprint provides evidence that the area needed to support Swedish food consumption in 1996 was extensive. The emergy support area was 40 times the agricultural area, or 3.6 times the land area of Sweden! This provides a hint that we would need much more area if we wanted to, or had to, produce the same agricultural products using only locally renewable resources