Assessing trade‐off risk between crop production and vertebrate biodiversity in three African Universities

Abstract

Governments worldwide are committed to eliminating hunger and conserving biodiversity, reflected in United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2 (Zero Hunger) and 15 (Life on Land). Expanding agricultural lands to meet growing food demands often threatens biodiversity, creating potential trade-offs between these objectives. To understand the potential trade-off risks, we need to determine the extent to which croplands are located in areas that are also species-rich and which crops pose the greatest biodiversity risk. We identify areas where there is a trade-off risk between vertebrate biodiversity and crop production important for food and livelihoods across Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia. We evaluate trade-off risk via three metrics: (i) the footprint, mapping the overlap between crop production and ecological priority areas; (ii) two measures of trade-off risk based on the number of species potentially impacted: one measuring average local species richness affected per unit area used to grow a crop or crop group—domestic or traded (trade-off risk intensity), and a second measuring this average local species richness impacted but summed across the total area used to grow the crop/crop group (trade-off risk potential); and (iii) the hotspots where crops are grown in regions especially rich in vertebrates.Trade-off risk varies more among crop types and regions, and relatively little, on average, between crops grown for international trade versus crops grown primarily for domestic consumption. The crops with the greatest total risk potential are wheat in Ethiopia, cocoa in Ghana, and maize in Zambia. In all three countries, coffee poses the greatest trade-off risk intensity to threatened species and bananas exceed the expected trade-off risk intensity. Trade-off risks are context-dependent and optimal management will therefore be both country- and crop-specific. As there is not just one crop posing a consistently high risk of trade-off for biodiversity, and many crops contribute to human diets and livelihoods, identifying areas with high trade-off risks is important for prioritising future research, including fieldwork, which could then identify farming practices that have the lowest impact on biodiversity. Importing nations will need to share the responsibility for mitigating biodiversity costs of their agricultural imports.