Source:
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Footnotes:
- Data refer to Serbia and Montenego.
Definitions & Technical notes:
Agricultural area
refers to the sum of area under arable land, permanent crops, and
permanent pastures.
Arable land
refers to land under temporary crops (double-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, land under market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). The abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for "Arable land" are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.
Land
under permanent crops refers to land
cultivated with crops that occupy the land for long periods and
need not be replanted after each harvest, such as cocoa, coffee
and rubber; this category includes land under flowering shrubs,
fruit trees, nut trees and vines, but excludes land under trees
grown for wood or timber.
Land under permanent pastures
refers to land used permanently (five years or
more) for herbaceous forage crops, either cultivated or growing
wild (wild prairie or grazing land).
% change since 1990 and Agricultural area as a % of total land area in 2002
are calculated by UNSD based on FAO data.
Data Quality:
FAO promotes national censuses of agricultural land use every 10 years, with varying degrees of success. Standardised definitions exist but can pose problems when land is used for multiple purposes. In many parts of the world, for example, livestock graze in orchards and among other permanent crops. Moreover, land removed from production under set-aside schemes intended to reduce overproduction, is not always reflected adequately in the figures.
Agricultural surveys and censuses are generally confined to farmland. However, in many countries common land is used for grazing and may or may not be included in the figures for permanent pastures.
Policy Relevance:
The ability of a given country to produce enough food to feed its own people will depend largely on the climate, on the availability of fertile land and on competing uses for that land. In many parts of the world, forest, wetlands and other natural land is still being cleared for conversion to agriculture, while in others, there are moves to return agricultural land to nature. And everywhere, cities and towns continue their sprawl in river valleys, often the areas with the most fertile soils.
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