SUMMARY
The production of food has major consequences for the appropriation of land. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that 38% of the total arable land is currently used for the production of food. This share is expected to increase in the next decades, as the size of the world population is increasing and total wealth is growing. Environmental food studies show that income has a substantial influence on both the amount and the type of food consumed. However, up to now, most studies compare the effect of income between countries. In the current research, the effect of income within countries is studied. This is done by studying the effect of household income on land requirements for food. The results will lead to more insights in the underlying drivers on food consumptions patterns on a sub-national level. The main research question is: ‘What is the effect of household income on land requirements for food’ Household surveys are used to obtain food consumption for different income groups within a country and these data are used to calculate the land requirements for food (LRF). As the use of household studies is relatively novel for environmental food consumption studies, a related question of the current research is whether household surveys are a valuable data source.
Different definitions of (household) food consumption exist. In the current research, food availability is chosen as a measure of food consumption. Food consumed outside the house or produced at home are included in the research, whenever possible. Initially, more than 30 surveys were selected, but only 3 countries could be used for the current research goal: the United Kingdom (developed), Bulgaria (transition) and Pakistan (developing). The limiting factor in the selection of surveys is the availability of quantity data; most surveys list only monetary data. The quantities obtained in the household surveys are calculated to calories and the caloric data can be calculated to LRF. The results show that the LRF are the same for all income groups in the UK, and increasing with income in Bulgaria and Pakistan. There are two drivers behind the total LRF: total caloric availability and composition of the diet. It is shown that the total caloric availability is slightly decreasing with income for the United Kingdom, and increasing for both Bulgaria and Pakistan. The shares of the different food categories in the total caloric availability are relatively the same for all income groups in the UK, while the share of cereals is decreasing in Bulgaria and Pakistan, and the share of animal products increasing with income. The richest people in Bulgaria and Pakistan consume more costly (high LRF) calories, while this effect is negligible for the UK. Animal products have the largest share in the LRF, except for Pakistan, where cereals have the largest share. It is expected that the appropriation of land will continue to grow, since incomes will continue to rise, until diet stabilization is reached. This emphasizes the need for more efficient agricultural practices and technology use.
The current research shows that household surveys can be used for environmental food studies, but their use is limited. Nevertheless, based on the surveys used in the current study, it could be shown that there is no effect of household income on LRF in the United Kingdom, but that there is such an effect in Bulgaria and Pakistan. One possible explanation could be that people in the developed world spend only a small percentage of their total income on food, while this fraction is much larger in developing countries. Based on other literature, education is suggested as a major determining factor of food consumption patterns in the Western world. A suggestion for further research is to investigate the effect of education on LRF.
