Ecological foodprint of Iran

ABSTRACT

Food production, consumption, ecological footprint of foodstuffs (foodprint), biocapacity, and ecological deficit of Iran for the period of 1991–2013 were evaluated and the trend toward the year 2025 was estimated. Total food production and consumption for 2012–2013 were 89.5 and 94.5 million tons with a self-sufficiency coefficient of 0.87. The ecological footprint for the country is 2.8 global hectare (Gha) and foodprint is 0.88 Gha per person with an increase of 3.3 and 2.9% per year up, respectively, to the year 2025, reaching values of 3.34 and 1.05 Gha per person. Biocapacity of the country is estimated as 0.82 Gha per person with an ecological deficit of 0.9 Gha with a predicted value of 2.5 Gha for the year 2025. The balance between consumption and national food production as well as foodprint was analyzed under 4 scenarios differing in the amount of consumption of meat and dairy products. In all scenarios with increasing consumption of animal products, the unbalanced relation of consumption–production was intensified and resulted in a decreased self-sufficiency index and increased foodprint. Results also showed that enhancement of input use efficiency (water and nitrogen) by 20% higher than current values could lead to improvement of agricultural self-sufficiency and considerable reduction of foodprint in all future scenarios.

KEYWORDS:

• Biocapacity
• ecological deficit
• ecological footprint
• foodprint
• global hectare

Additional information

Funding

This research (14920.1) was funded by vice chancellor for research of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, which is hereby acknowledged.