Arable land

Arable land (from the Latin: arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.[1] Alternatively, for the purposes of agricultural statistics,[2] the term often has a more precise definition:

Arable land is the land under temporary agricultural crops (multiple-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for 'Arable land' are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.[3]

Modern mechanised agriculture permits large fields like this one in Dorset, England

A more concise definition appearing in the Eurostat glossary similarly refers to actual rather than potential uses: "land worked (ploughed or tilled) regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation".[4]

In Britain, arable land has traditionally been contrasted with pasturable land such as heaths, which could be used for sheep-rearing but not as farmland.

Arable land area
Share of land area used for arable agriculture, OWID

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 2013, the world's arable land amounted to 1.407 billion hectares, out of a total of 4.924 billion hectares of land used for agriculture.[5]

Arable land area (1000 ha)[6]
RankCountry or region20152016201720182019
1 United States156,645157,191157,737157,737157,737
2 India156,413156,317156,317156,317156,067
3 Russia121,649121,649121,649121,649121,649
4 China119,593119,512119,477119,475119,474
5 Brazil54,51855,14055,76255,76255,762
6 Canada38,28238,53038,50938,69038,648
7 Nigeria34,00034,00034,00034,00034,000
8 Ukraine32,77532,77632,77332,88932,924
9 Argentina36,68835,33733,98532,63332,633
10 Australia31,09030,05730,75230,97430,573

Arable land (hectares per person)
Fields in the region of Záhorie in Western Slovakia
A field of sunflowers in Cardejón, Spain
Arable land (hectares per person)[6]
Country Name2013
Afghanistan0.254
Albania0.213
Algeria0.196
American Samoa0.054
Andorra0.038
Angola0.209
Antigua and Barbuda0.044
Argentina0.933
Armenia0.150
Aruba0.019
Australia1.999
Austria0.160
Azerbaijan0.204
Bahamas, The0.021
Bahrain0.001
Bangladesh0.049
Barbados0.039
Belarus0.589
Belgium0.073
Belize0.227
Benin0.262
Bermuda0.005
Bhutan0.133
Bolivia0.427
Bosnia and Herzegovina0.264
Botswana0.125
Brazil0.372
British Virgin Islands0.034
Brunei Darussalam0.012
Bulgaria0.479
Burkina Faso0.363
Burundi0.115
Cabo Verde0.108
Cambodia0.275
Cameroon0.279
Canada1.306
Cayman Islands0.003
Central African Republic0.382
Chad0.373
Channel Islands0.026
Chile0.074
China0.078
Colombia0.036
Comoros0.086
Congo, Dem. Rep.0.098
Congo, Rep.0.125
Costa Rica0.049
Côte d'Ivoire0.134
Croatia0.206
Cuba0.278
Curaçao
Cyprus0.070
Czech Republic0.299
Denmark0.429
Djibouti0.002
Dominica0.083
Dominican Republic0.078
Ecuador0.076
Egypt, Arab Rep.0.031
El Salvador0.120
Equatorial Guinea0.151
Eritrea
Estonia0.480
Ethiopia0.160
Faroe Islands0.062
Fiji0.187
Finland0.409
France0.277
French Polynesia0.009
Gabon0.197
Gambia, The0.236
Georgia0.119
Germany0.145
Ghana0.180
Gibraltar
Greece0.232
Greenland0.016
Grenada0.028
Guam0.006
Guatemala0.064
Guinea0.259
Guinea-Bissau0.171
Guyana0.552
Haiti0.103
Honduras0.130
Hong Kong SAR, China0.000
Hungary0.445
Iceland0.374
India0.123
Indonesia0.094
Iran, Islamic Rep.0.193
Iraq0.147
Ireland0.242
Isle of Man0.253
Israel0.035
Italy0.113
Jamaica0.044
Japan0.033
Jordan0.032
Kazakhstan1.726
Kenya0.133
Kiribati0.018
Korea, Dem. People's Rep.0.094
Korea, Rep.0.030
Kosovo
Kuwait0.003
Kyrgyz Republic0.223
Lao PDR0.226
Latvia0.600
Lebanon0.025
Lesotho0.119
Liberia0.116
Libya0.274
Liechtenstein0.070
Lithuania0.774
Luxembourg0.115
Macao SAR, China
Macedonia, FYR0.199
Madagascar0.153
Malawi0.235
Malaysia0.032
Maldives0.010
Mali0.386
Malta0.021
Marshall Islands0.038
Mauritania0.116
Mauritius0.060
Mexico0.186
Micronesia, Fed. Sts.0.019
Moldova0.510
Monaco
Mongolia0.198
Montenegro0.013
Morocco0.240
Mozambique0.213
Myanmar0.203
Namibia0.341
Nauru
Nepal0.076
Netherlands0.062
New Caledonia0.024
New Zealand0.123
Nicaragua0.253
Niger0.866
Nigeria0.197
Northern Mariana Islands0.019
Norway0.159
Oman0.010
Pakistan0.168
Palau0.048
Panama0.148
Papua New Guinea0.041
Paraguay0.696
Peru0.136
Philippines0.057
Poland0.284
Portugal0.107
Puerto Rico0.017
Qatar0.007
Romania0.438
Russian Federation0.852
Rwanda0.107
Samoa0.042
San Marino0.032
São Tomé and Príncipe0.048
Saudi Arabia0.102
Senegal0.229
Serbia0.460
Seychelles0.001
Sierra Leone0.256
Singapore0.000
Sint Maarten (Dutch part)
Slovak Republic0.258
Slovenia0.085
Solomon Islands0.036
Somalia0.107
South Africa0.235
South Sudan
Spain0.270
Sri Lanka0.063
St. Kitts and Nevis0.092
St. Lucia0.016
St. Martin (French part)
St. Vincent and the Grenadines0.046
Sudan0.345
Suriname0.112
Swaziland0.140
Sweden0.270
Switzerland0.050
Syrian Arab Republic0.241
Tajikistan0.106
Tanzania0.269
Thailand0.249
Timor-Leste0.131
Togo0.382
Tonga0.152
Trinidad and Tobago0.019
Tunisia0.262
Turkey0.270
Turkmenistan0.370
Turks and Caicos Islands0.030
Tuvalu
Uganda0.189
Ukraine0.715
United Arab Emirates0.004
United Kingdom0.098
United States0.480
Uruguay0.682
Uzbekistan0.145
Vanuatu0.079
Venezuela, RB0.089
Vietnam0.071
Virgin Islands (US)0.010
West Bank and Gaza0.011
Yemen, Rep.0.049
Zambia0.243
Zimbabwe0.268

Non-arable land
Water buffalo ploughing rice fields near Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia
A pasture in the East Riding of Yorkshire in England

Agricultural land that is not arable according to the FAO definition above includes:

  • Meadows and pastures – land used as pasture and grazed range, and those natural grasslands and sedge meadows that are used for hay production in some regions.
  • Permanent crop – land that produces crops from woody vegetation, e.g. orchard land, vineyards, coffee plantations, rubber plantations, and land producing nut trees;

Other non-arable land includes land that is not suitable for any agricultural use. Land that is not arable, in the sense of lacking capability or suitability for cultivation for crop production, has one or more limitations – a lack of sufficient freshwater for irrigation, stoniness, steepness, adverse climate, excessive wetness with the impracticality of drainage, excessive salts, or a combination of these, among others.[7] Although such limitations may preclude cultivation, and some will in some cases preclude any agricultural use, large areas unsuitable for cultivation may still be agriculturally productive. For example, United States NRCS statistics indicate that about 59 percent of US non-federal pasture and unforested rangeland is unsuitable for cultivation, yet such land has value for grazing of livestock.[8] In British Columbia, Canada, 41 percent of the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve area is unsuitable for the production of cultivated crops, but is suitable for uncultivated production of forage usable by grazing livestock.[9] Similar examples can be found in many rangeland areas elsewhere.

Land incapable of being cultivated for the production of crops can sometimes be converted to arable land. New arable land makes more food and can reduce starvation. This outcome also makes a country more self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. Making non-arable land arable often involves digging new irrigation canals and new wells, aqueducts, desalination plants, planting trees for shade in the desert, hydroponics, fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides, reverse osmosis water processors, PET film insulation or other insulation against heat and cold, digging ditches and hills for protection against the wind, and installing greenhouses with internal light and heat for protection against the cold outside and to provide light in cloudy areas. Such modifications are often prohibitively expensive. An alternative is the seawater greenhouse, which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the only energy input. This technology is optimized to grow crops on desert land close to the sea.

The use of artifices does not make the land arable. Rock still remains rock, and shallow – less than 6 feet (1.8 metres) – turnable soil is still not considered toilable. The use of artifice is an open-air none recycled water hydroponics relationship. The below described circumstances are not in perspective, have limited duration, and have a tendency to accumulate trace materials in soil that either there or elsewhere cause deoxygenation. The use of vast amounts of fertilizer may have unintended consequences for the environment by devastating rivers, waterways, and river endings through the accumulation of non-degradable toxins and nitrogen-bearing molecules that remove oxygen and cause non-aerobic processes to form.

Examples of infertile non-arable land being turned into fertile arable land include:

  • Aran Islands: These islands off the west coast of Ireland (not to be confused with the Isle of Arran in Scotland's Firth of Clyde) were unsuitable for arable farming because they were too rocky. The people covered the islands with a shallow layer of seaweed and sand from the ocean. Today, crops are grown there, even though the islands are still considered non-arable.
  • Israel: The construction of desalination plants along Israel's coast allowed agriculture in some areas that were formerly desert. The desalination plants, which remove the salt from ocean water, have produced a new source of water for farming, drinking, and washing.
  • Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients in wood ash, but these expire within a few years.
  • Terra preta, fertile tropical soils produced by adding charcoal.

Examples of fertile arable land being turned into infertile land include:

  • Droughts such as the "Dust Bowl" of the Great Depression in the US turned farmland into desert.
  • Each year, arable land is lost due to desertification and human-induced erosion. Improper irrigation of farmland can wick the sodium, calcium, and magnesium from the soil and water to the surface. This process steadily concentrates salt in the root zone, decreasing productivity for crops that are not salt-tolerant.
  • Rainforest deforestation: The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land. For example, Madagascar's central highland plateau has become virtually totally barren (about ten percent of the country) as a result of slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of shifting cultivation practiced by many natives.

See also
  • Development easement
  • Land use statistics by country
  • List of environment topics
  • Soil fertility

References
  1. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed. "arable, adj. and n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013.
  2. The World Bank. Agricultural land (% of land area) http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS Archived 17 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  3. FAOSTAT. [Statistical database of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] Glossary. http://faostat3.fao.org/mes/glossary/E Archived 1 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Eurostat. Glossary: Arable land. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Arable_land Archived 7 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  5. "FAOSTAT Land Use module". Food and Agriculture Organization. Archived from the original on 16 August 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
  6. "FAOSTAT Land Use module". Food and Agriculture Organization. Archived from the original on 16 August 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
  7. United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service. 1961. Land capability classification. Agriculture Handbook 210. 21 pp.
  8. NRCS. 2013. Summary report 2010 national resources inventory. The United States Natural Resources Conservation Service. 163 pp.
  9. Agricultural Land Commission. Agriculture Capability and the ALR Fact Sheet. http://www.alc.gov.bc.ca/alc/DownloadAsset?assetId=72876D8604EC45279B8D3C1B14428CF8&filename=agriculture_capability__the_alr_fact_sheet_2013.pdf
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