Agricultural production is projected to increase 59-110% by 2050 (1, 2) in order to meet the needs of the rapidly growing population. Increasing agricultural inputs has greatly augmented food production on smaller areas of land, but generally has negative effects on biodiversity. Sparing large areas of land specifically for wildlife can be an effective way to offset the negative effects of intensifying agricultural production, but may be difficult to do for habitats that are already experiencing steep declines.
With the rapid decline of wetlands over the last two centuries, wetland birds are increasingly using flooded agricultural land for foraging and breeding. In order to conserve wetland birds with limited natural wetlands left to set aside for them, it is important to understand how agricultural intensification affects them.
References 1. Tilman, David, Christian Balzer, Jason Hill, and Belinda L. Befort. 2011. “Global Food Demand and the Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (50): 20260–64.
2. Valin, Hugo, Ronald D. Sands, Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, Gerald C. Nelson, Helal Ahammad, Elodie Blanc, Benjamin Bodirsky, et al. 2014. “The Future of Food Demand: Understanding Differences in Global Economic Models.” Agricultural Economics 45 (1): 51–67.