Resource Consumption And Environmental Impact Assessment Of Food Production

The basic idea of agricultural sustainable development is to guarantee food security on the premise of not reducing environmental quality and not destroying agricultural resources.We should combine meeting the needs of human survival with improving the efficiency of resource use and reducing environmental impact to achieve sustainable,eco-friendly,green and win-win development.The process of food production is accompanied by a large amount of resource consumption and environmental pollution.Improving the utilization efficiency of soil and water resources and alleviating non-point source pollution have always been the focus of research on food security.However,in the past studies,there was a lack of uniform measurement indexes for the multi-types of resource consumption and environmental pollution in food production,and only unilateral or several aspects were usually carried out.The concept of footprint provides appropriate research methods and tools for this kind of research.In this paper,footprint method was used to quantitatively analyze the resource utilization efficiency and environmental problems in food production,and a new evaluation method for resource consumption and environmental impact in food production process was provided.Based on the existing footprint quantification methods,the water footprint,land footprint,carbon footprint and grey water footprint of food production in 31 provincial-level administrative regions of China from 1998to 2017 were calculated.Arc GIS software was used to analyze the calculation results.We drew the footprint spatial distribution map,and discussed the spatial distribution characteristics and differences of all kinds of footprints.Combined with IPAT and GM（1,1）model,the relationship between various agricultural footprints and economic and population growth was analyzed.The future footprints were predicted and the sustainability of food production was evaluated.The preliminary conclusions are as follows:（1）The time evolution of the food production footprint was obvious,and the overall trend was downward.The national 20-year average food production water footprint（PWF）,food production land footprint（PLF）,food production carbon footprint（PCF）and food production grey water footprint(PWF_grey)were 1.245 m³/kg,2.066 m²/kg,0.663 kg CE/kg and 0.289 m³/kg,respectively.The growth rate of food production was higher than the growth rate of water footprint（m³）and land footprint（hm²）.The utilization efficiency of water and soil resources has been continuously improved,and the resource footprint has been steadily declining.The environmental impact footprint PCF showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing,PWF_grey showed a slow downward trend,and the impact of food production on the regional environment was reduced.（2）The spatial distribution of food production footprint was obviously different,and most of them showed regional clustering.The resource-based footprint of the farming-pastoral area was relatively high,and the environmental impact-based footprint of the rice-growing area was relatively high.The spatial correlation of PWF was related to the amount of available water resources.The high-low outlier areas were mostly concentrated in the south of China,and the low-low cluster areas were concentrated in the north.Due to the influence of topographical differences,western China appeared as high-high cluster areas of PWF.Most provinces in northwestern China were high value areas of PLF,of which Shaanxi,Ningxia and Gansu had been in high-high cluster areas.The high-high cluster areas of PWF_grey were reduced,and the pressure on water resources was relatively reduced.The footprint presents a phenomenon of regional aggregation,which helps us to make targeted industrial adjustments,such as virtual water trade,to disperse pressure on productivity in areas with low agricultural available resources or high agricultural footprint.（3）The resources and environment were under great pressure,and the sustainability of agricultural development was poor.During the study period,the footprint of unit agricultural output value continued to decrease with the increase of per capita agricultural output value,which reduced the pressure on the environment caused by food production to a certain extent.However,the agricultural output value footprint has not been reduced to the level predicted by the IPAT model during the study period,and the sustainability of food production is generally poor.Based on the prediction results,if the current agricultural situation is maintained,the GM（1,1）model predicts that the growth rate of food production will be higher than the growth rate of the carbon footprint.PCF was declining year by year,but high yield and high carbon emissions increase the environment pressure.（4）Measures such as optimizing fertilization and irrigation are important measures to ensure the sustainable development of food production.Factors such as the endowment of water and soil resources,population density,and input of agricultural materials are closely related to the size of the footprint.Among them,the impact of nitrogen fertilizer is very important,and the sustainable development of agriculture is under great pressure.Through the development of efficient water-saving agriculture,rational use of arable land resources,continuous optimization of planting structure,improvement of fertilizer resource utilization efficiency,and increasing seeding rate of good seeds to reduce the food production footprint,these measures can effectively promote the sustainable development of food production.This paper used the footprint method to comprehensively evaluate the efficiency of agricultural resource utilization and environmental impact.The IPAT and GM（1,1）models were used to evaluate the sustainability of food production.The research results can provide reference for formulating agricultural emission reduction policies.