Land statistics 2001–2023. Global, regional and country trends

New data from FAOSTAT reveals how global land use has changed between 2001 and 2023.

FAO report highlights that over the past two decades global cropland area expanded by 78 million hectares, while permanent meadows and pastures decreased by 150 million hectares, resulting in a small (2 percent) contraction of global agricultural land. The report highlights trends in both the intensification of agriculture and its environmental trade-offs.

Main findings:

• In 2023, world total agricultural land was 4 800 million hectares (ha), more than one-third of the global land area. Within agricultural land, cropland covered about 1 600 million ha while permanent meadows and pastures covered 3 200 million ha.
• The rest of the global land area was almost equally split between forest land, covering 4 050 million ha, and other land, with 4 150 million ha of deserts, glaciers, barren lands, built areas, etc.
• Since 2001, world total cropland area grew by about 80 million ha (5 percent) while permanent meadows and pastures lost 150 million ha, a decrease of 4 percent.
• Growth in cropland area from 2001 to 2023 was the result of area expansion in Africa (+75 million ha), South America (+25 million ha) and South-eastern Asia (+20 million ha), which was partially offset by contractions in Northern America (−25 million ha), Eastern Europe (−7 million ha) and Southern Europe (−6 million ha).
• The area used for growing crops grew significantly from 2001 to 2023. Temporary crops (such as wheat, rice and maize) increased by about 100 million ha, or 11 percent, reaching 1 080 million ha. Permanent crops (such as cocoa, oil palm and coffee) grew by 55 million ha, reaching nearly 200 million ha in 2023, an increase of over 40 percent.
• From 2001 to 2023, while world total cropland area per person decreased by about 20 percent, from 0.24 to 0.19 hectares per capita, land productivity, measured in terms of total agricultural gross value of production, grew more strongly – by over 60 percent, from about USD 550 per hectare to almost USD 900 per hectare.