The effect of China’s expanded ecological red lines on global soy and maize production, trade, and shifting land use

Abstract

This project investigates the agricultural spillover effect of China’s expanded ecological red line, announced after the 30x30 Target in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. China contends with millions of hectares in conflict area as its ecological red line overlaps with cropland. China is also the world’s top importer of soybean and maize, but a recent food security law aims to increase domestic grain production and reduce imports. We combine scenarios of a strict or lenient ecological red line with an effective or ineffective law, then study the extremes of crop intensification or extensification to meet food deficits. We quantify the potential impact of the expanded ecological red line on China’s soy and maize production to be 3.3 million metrics tons of soybean and 33.6 million metric tons of maize. In the lowest deficit scenario, the agricultural spillover effect could require yield increases of 31.6% for soy and 19.8% for maize in China by 2033, along with moderate yield improvements (3% soy, 8.8% maize) in Brazil. Alternatively, China could expand cropland by 889,447 hectares for soy and 2,006,126 hectares for maize. In the highest deficit scenario, China would need to increase yields by 127% for soy and 39% for maize, or expand cropland by over 9 million hectares for each soy and maize. We conclude that intensification is more feasible to compensate the majority of future soy and maize deficit, and we map areas of likely crop expansion and intensification to the Matopiba region in Brazil. These findings can support further research on balancing biodiversity conservation and food security.