Humans have transformed the face of Planet Earth for growing crops and grazing cattle. While these land use practices provide much-needed benefits -- food and fiber for a growing population, as well as livelihoods for farmers -- in the long term, they degrade the environment, representing an inherent trade-off.
Land use results in the loss of biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, regional and global climate changes, alteration of freshwater flow and quality, and spread of diseases. Our research group is broadly interested in the question of how to best manage land around the planet in order to maintain the services valuable to humanity while minimizing environmental degradation. Here are the some of the questions we ponder. How are humans using land around the world, and how is it changing? How can we feed 10 billion people while reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture? Can organic farming be part of this solution? Is it better to intensify farming and "spare land for nature", or is it better to have low-intensity agriculture covering a greater extent of land? How are crop yields changing, and how might climate change affect future crop yields? How might climate change in Canada alter the functioning of Boreal forest ecosystems? What can we learn about sustainable agricultural systems from studying the 4000-year old homegardens (agroforestry systems) in Kerala, southern India? How does urban expansion influence land change in different parts of the world? |
GLOBALAgriculture is one of the major drivers of global environmental change, implicated in climate change, biodiversity loss, and degradation of water resources. Despite this, there is scant information on the global extent and spatial patterns of even the most obvious land use practices such as cultivation and grazing.
We develop data, ask questions and seek to shed light on these global scale patterns. |
Juan's PhD work looks at inequality in food access based on income around the world.
Ginni is mapping how agroecological zones (i.e. regions where we grow different kinds of food) are expected to shift globally given IPCC model predictions of future climate.
Julie is similarly using IPCC model prediction data to see how projected sea level rise will encroach on current cropland. There are many group members including Christian, Dana, Susanna, Vinny who are gathering data on farm size globally and studying related implications. There is also a consolidated effort to map diversification at a global scale.
Funded by SSHRC. |
Christian and Verena are mapping agricultural biomes, or "agromes", by defining management characteristics and environmental determinants that distinguish them.
Zia, with assistance from Work Learn students Victor Pineda Gonzalez, Carlina Kim and others, is developing an interactive web app called FarmGeek to display the impacts on yield of different agricultural practices.
Funded by NSERC and Genome Canada. Ginni and Juan are working on a project using food price data to see whether the poorest quantiles can afford food giving fluctuating prices.
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Some representative publications of global-scale work
Mehrabi & Ramankutty 2019; Ramankutty et al. 2018; Siebert et al. 2015; Ray et al. 2012; Monfreda et al. 2008
Mehrabi & Ramankutty 2019; Ramankutty et al. 2018; Siebert et al. 2015; Ray et al. 2012; Monfreda et al. 2008
REGIONAL
While we research many topics at the global scale, land use and its environmental impacts are shaped by local and regional scale climate, policies, and human-land interactions.
We use statistical modelling, GIS and social science methods to investigate country or regional scale questions on the food system. |
Matt worked on mapping areas of ecological and agricultural importance in Canada.
Jordan and others have been studying the relationship between farm size and field size using regional farm size data and remotely sensed data.
Ginni and Jumi are seeing what climate-smart agriculture looks like in the Canadian prairies.
Funded by Alberta Innovates. Erika hopes to look into how NAFTA is impacting agriculture.
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Zia is leading a project, with the help of several past and current LUGE members, assessing across ~15 countries whether smallholders are more vulnerable to climate shocks than large farms.
Balsher is studying the groundwater/water and energy inputs into food production in India.
Funded by NSERC. Laura is looking at whether the inclusion of the right to food in a country's constitution impacts food security. She is conducting a case study of ~10 countries.
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Some representative publications of regional-scale work
Ricciardi et al. 2018; Graesser et al. 2018; Graesser et al. 2015; Rowhani et al. 2011
Ricciardi et al. 2018; Graesser et al. 2018; Graesser et al. 2015; Rowhani et al. 2011