Arable land and crop production are two important aspects of agriculture, the practice of cultivating plants and animals for food, fiber, fuel, and other purposes. Arable land is any land that can be plowed and used to grow crops, while crop production is the process and outcome of cultivating crops on arable land. In this essay, I will provide an overview of the global distribution, trends, and challenges of arable land and crop production, as well as some possible solutions to improve their sustainability and efficiency.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 2019, the world’s arable land amounted to 1.407 billion hectares, out of a total of 4.924 billion hectares of land used for agriculture. Arable land accounts for about 10% of the world’s total land area and 28% of the world’s habitable land area. The distribution of arable land varies widely across regions and countries, depending on factors such as climate, soil quality, topography, population density, and land use policies. The map below shows the share of arable land in each country’s total land area in 2016.
[Map of arable land as a share of total land area](^1^)As the map shows, some countries have a high proportion of arable land, such as Bangladesh (59%), Ukraine (56%), Denmark (58%), and India (53%), while others