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International food trade benefits biodiversity and food security in low-income countries

Nature Food volume 3, pages 349–355 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

To achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to food security and biodiversity, understanding their interrelationships is essential. By examining datasets comprising 189 food items across 157 countries during 2000–2018, we found that high-income countries exported more food to low-income countries than they imported. Many low-income countries, especially those with biodiversity hotspots, increasingly acted as net importers, suggesting that imports from high-income countries can benefit biodiversity in low-income countries. Because low-income countries without hotspots have rapidly raised their amounts of food exports to hotspot countries, such exports might help further reduce negative impacts on biodiversity. The increasing complexity of food trade among countries with and without biodiversity hotspots requires innovative approaches to minimize the negative impacts of global food production and trade on biodiversity in countries worldwide.

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Fig. 1: Quantity of net food trade between high-hotspot countries, low-hotspot countries and non-hotspot countries with high and low income.
Fig. 2: Annual food flows (Mt).
Fig. 3: Spatial distributions of income, hotspots, net trade (export–import) and population.
Fig. 4: Changes in agricultural intensification and agricultural area in high-hotspot countries, low-hotspot countries and non-hotspot countries, with each group subdivided into high- and low-income countries.

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Data availability

All data analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The data that support the findings of this study are available within the paper, its Supplementary Information and Supplementary Data 1.

Code availability

The codes to perform our panel data analyses can be found at https://github.com/mingonchung/foodtrade-hotspot.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Nichols for helpful comments on earlier drafts, as well as the organizations that provided the data for this study. Funding was provided by the US National Science Foundation (grant no. 1924111, J.L.), Michigan AgBioResearch (J.L.) and the Sustainable Michigan Endowment Project (M.G.C.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Min Gon Chung & Jianguo Liu

  2. Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California, Merced, CA, USA

    Min Gon Chung

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  1. Min Gon Chung
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Contributions

M.G.C. analysed the model and drafted the manuscript. M.G.C. and J.L. conceived of the study, revised the manuscript and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jianguo Liu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Food thanks Kamal Bawa, Stuart Pimm and Cibele Queiroz for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Spatial distribution of biodiversity hotspots.

Raw data from Myers et al.27 and Hoffman et al.28.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Average annual food flows (Mt/year) from 2000 to 2018. Food flows between high-hotspot countries (HHC), low-hotspot countries (LHC), and non-hotspot countries (NHC) with high- and low-income.

Non-hotspot countries are marked by red, high-hotspot countries by dark green, and low-hotspot countries by light green. The arc length of an outer circle indicates the sum of food exported and imported in each group. The arc length of a middle circle refers to the quantity of food exports. The inner arc length shows the quantity of food imports. Raw data from UN FAO52.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Spatial distribution of per capita crop production (kg/capita) and per capita harvested areas (m2/capita) in 2010.

(a) county-level of crop production, (b) hotspot-level of crop production, (c) county-level of harvested area, and (d) hotspot-level of harvested area.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Number of countries with different percentages of biodiversity hotspots (land area with biodiversity hotspots out of total terrestrial land area).

Raw data from Myers et al.27 and Hoffman et al.28.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Quantity of net food trade between high-hotspot countries (HHC), low-hotspot countries (LHC), and non-hotspot countries (NHC) with high and low income.

The group of high-, low-, and non-hotspot countries were classified with the proportion of biodiversity hotspots in harvested areas: (a) Blue indicates net food trade (export–import) in 2000, red indicates net food trade in 2018, and cyan indicates average net annual food trade from 2000–2018. The net amounts of food trade in each group are not linearly increased or decreased over time. The net amounts of food trade in 2000 and 2018 can be lower or higher than those in other mid-years. (b) The amounts of net food trade between high-income and low-income countries in high-hotspot countries (HHC), low-hotspot countries (LHC), and non-hotspot countries (NHC) from 2000–2018. Non-hotspot countries are indicated by red, high-hotspot countries by dark green, and low-hotspot countries by light green.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1–8 and methods.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Data 1

Food trade, land savings and subnational analyses from 2000 to 2018.

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Chung, M.G., Liu, J. International food trade benefits biodiversity and food security in low-income countries. Nat Food 3, 349–355 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00499-7

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