Arable land () is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.Oxford English Dictionary, "arable, adj. and n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of agricultural statistics,The World Bank. Agricultural land (% of land area) http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS the term often has a more precise definition:

A more concise definition appearing in the Eurostat glossary similarly refers to actual rather than potential uses: "land worked (ploughed or tilled) regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation".Eurostat. Glossary: Arable land. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Glossary:Arable_land In Britain, arable land has traditionally been contrasted with pasturable land such as heaths, which could be used for sheep-rearing but not as farmland.

Arable land is vulnerable to land degradation and some types of un-arable land can be enriched to create useful land. Climate change and biodiversity loss are driving pressure on arable land. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/.

By country

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 2013, 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 area (1000 ha) Rank Country or region 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 1 United States 156,645 157,191 157,737 157,737 157,737 2 India 156,413 156,317 156,317 156,317 156,067 3 Russia 121,649 121,649 121,649 121,649 121,649 4 China 119,593 119,512 119,477 119,475 119,474 5 Brazil 54,518 55,140 55,762 55,762 55,762 6 Canada 38,282 38,530 38,509 38,690 38,648 7 Nigeria 34,000 34,000 34,000 34,000 34,000 8 Ukraine 32,775 32,776 32,773 32,889 32,924 9 Argentina 36,688 35,337 33,985 32,633 32,633 10 Australia 31,090 30,057 30,752 30,974 30,573

Arable land (hectares per person)

+ Country Name 2013 Afghanistan 0.254 Albania 0.213 Algeria 0.196 American Samoa 0.054 Andorra 0.038 Angola 0.209 Antigua and Barbuda 0.044 Argentina 0.933 Armenia 0.150 Aruba 0.019 Australia 1.999 Austria 0.160 Azerbaijan 0.204 Bahamas, The 0.021 Bahrain 0.001 Bangladesh 0.049 Barbados 0.039 Belarus 0.589 Belgium 0.073 Belize 0.227 Benin 0.262 Bermuda 0.005 Bhutan 0.133 Bolivia 0.427 Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.264 Botswana 0.125 Brazil 0.372 British Virgin Islands 0.034 Brunei Darussalam 0.012 Bulgaria 0.479 Burkina Faso 0.363 Burundi 0.115 Cabo Verde 0.108 Cambodia 0.275 Cameroon 0.279 Canada 1.306 Cayman Islands 0.003 Central African Republic 0.382 Chad 0.373 Channel Islands 0.026 Chile 0.074 China 0.078 Colombia 0.036 Comoros 0.086 Congo, Dem. Rep. 0.098 Congo, Rep. 0.125 Costa Rica 0.049 Côte d'Ivoire 0.134 Croatia 0.206 Cuba 0.278 Curaçao Cyprus 0.070 Czech Republic 0.299 Denmark 0.429 Djibouti 0.002 Dominica 0.083 Dominican Republic 0.078 Ecuador 0.076 Egypt, Arab Rep. 0.031 El Salvador 0.120 Equatorial Guinea 0.151 Eritrea Estonia 0.480 Ethiopia 0.160 Faroe Islands 0.062 Fiji 0.187 Finland 0.409 France 0.277 French Polynesia 0.009 Gabon 0.197 Gambia, The 0.236 Georgia 0.119 Germany 0.145 Ghana 0.180 Gibraltar Greece 0.232 Greenland 0.016 Grenada 0.028 Guam 0.006 Guatemala 0.064 Guinea 0.259 Guinea-Bissau 0.171 Guyana 0.552 Haiti 0.103 Honduras 0.130 Hong Kong SAR, China 0.000 Hungary 0.445 Iceland 0.374 India 0.123 Indonesia 0.094 Iran, Islamic Rep. 0.193 Iraq 0.147 Ireland 0.242 Isle of Man 0.253 Israel 0.035 Italy 0.113 Jamaica 0.044 Japan 0.033 Jordan 0.032 Kazakhstan 1.726 Kenya 0.133 Kiribati 0.018 Korea, Dem. People's Rep. 0.094 Korea, Rep. 0.030 Kosovo Kuwait 0.003 Kyrgyz Republic 0.223 Lao PDR 0.226 Latvia 0.600 Lebanon 0.025 Lesotho 0.119 Liberia 0.116 Libya 0.274 Liechtenstein 0.070 Lithuania 0.774 Luxembourg 0.115 Macao SAR, China Macedonia, FYR 0.199 Madagascar 0.153 Malawi 0.235 Malaysia 0.032 Maldives 0.010 Mali 0.386 Malta 0.021 Marshall Islands 0.038 Mauritania 0.116 Mauritius 0.060 Mexico 0.186 Micronesia, Fed. Sts. 0.019 Moldova 0.510 Monaco Mongolia 0.198 Montenegro 0.013 Morocco 0.240 Mozambique 0.213 Myanmar 0.203 Namibia 0.341 Nauru Nepal 0.076 Netherlands 0.062 New Caledonia 0.024 New Zealand 0.123 Nicaragua 0.253 Niger 0.866 Nigeria 0.197 Northern Mariana Islands 0.019 Norway 0.159 Oman 0.010 Pakistan 0.168 Palau 0.048 Panama 0.148 Papua New Guinea 0.041 Paraguay 0.696 Peru 0.136 Philippines 0.057 Poland 0.284 Portugal 0.107 Puerto Rico 0.017 Qatar 0.007 Romania 0.438 Russian Federation 0.852 Rwanda 0.107 Samoa 0.042 San Marino 0.032 São Tomé and Príncipe 0.048 Saudi Arabia 0.102 Senegal 0.229 Serbia 0.460 Seychelles 0.001 Sierra Leone 0.256 Singapore 0.000 Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovak Republic 0.258 Slovenia 0.085 Solomon Islands 0.036 Somalia 0.107 South Africa 0.235 South Sudan Spain 0.270 Sri Lanka 0.063 St. Kitts and Nevis 0.092 St. Lucia 0.016 St. Martin (French part) St. Vincent and the Grenadines 0.046 Sudan 0.345 Suriname 0.112 Swaziland 0.140 Sweden 0.270 Switzerland 0.050 Syrian Arab Republic 0.241 Tajikistan 0.106 Tanzania 0.269 Thailand 0.249 Timor-Leste 0.131 Togo 0.382 Tonga 0.152 Trinidad and Tobago 0.019 Tunisia 0.262 Turkey 0.270 Turkmenistan 0.370 Turks and Caicos Islands 0.030 Tuvalu Uganda 0.189 Ukraine 0.715 United Arab Emirates 0.004 United Kingdom 0.098 United States 0.480 Uruguay 0.682 Uzbekistan 0.145 Vanuatu 0.079 Venezuela, RB 0.089 Vietnam 0.071 Virgin Islands (US) 0.010 West Bank and Gaza 0.011 Yemen, Rep. 0.049 Zambia 0.243 Zimbabwe 0.268

Non-arable land

Agricultural land that is not arable according to the FAO definition above includes: Meadows and pasturesland used as pasture and grazed range, and those natural grasslands and sedge meadows that are used for hay production in some regions. Permanent cropland that produces crops from woody vegetation, e.g. orchard land, vineyards, coffee plantations, rubber plantations, and land producing nut trees;

Other non-arable land includes land that is not suitable for any agricultural use. Land that is not arable, in the sense of lacking capability or suitability for cultivation for crop production, has one or more limitationsa lack of sufficient freshwater for irrigation, stoniness, steepness, adverse climate, excessive wetness with the impracticality of drainage, excessive salts, or a combination of these, among others.United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service. 1961. Land capability classification. Agriculture Handbook 210. 21 pp. Although such limitations may preclude cultivation, and some will in some cases preclude any agricultural use, large areas unsuitable for cultivation may still be agriculturally productive. For example, United States NRCS statistics indicate that about 59 percent of US non-federal pasture and unforested rangeland is unsuitable for cultivation, yet such land has value for grazing of livestock.NRCS. 2013. Summary report 2010 national resources inventory. The United States Natural Resources Conservation Service. 163 pp. In British Columbia, Canada, 41 percent of the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve area is unsuitable for the production of cultivated crops, but is suitable for uncultivated production of forage usable by grazing livestock.Agricultural Land Commission. Agriculture Capability and the ALR Fact Sheet. http://www.alc.gov.bc.ca/alc/DownloadAsset?assetId=72876D8604EC45279B8D3C1B14428CF8&filename=agriculture_capability__the_alr_fact_sheet_2013.pdf Similar examples can be found in many rangeland areas elsewhere.

Changes in arability Land conversion Land incapable of being cultivated for the production of crops can sometimes be converted to arable land. New arable land makes more food and can reduce starvation. This outcome also makes a country more self-sufficient and politically independent, because food importation is reduced. Making non-arable land arable often involves digging new irrigation canals and new wells, aqueducts, desalination plants, planting trees for shade in the desert, hydroponics, fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides, reverse osmosis water processors, PET film insulation or other insulation against heat and cold, digging ditches and hills for protection against the wind, and installing greenhouses with internal light and heat for protection against the cold outside and to provide light in cloudy areas. Such modifications are often prohibitively expensive. An alternative is the seawater greenhouse, which desalinates water through evaporation and condensation using solar energy as the only energy input. This technology is optimized to grow crops on desert land close to the sea.

The use of artifices does not make the land arable. Rock still remains rock, and shallowless than turnable soil is still not considered toilable. The use of artifice is an open-air non-recycled water hydroponics relationship. The below described circumstances are not in perspective, have limited duration, and have a tendency to accumulate trace materials in soil that either there or elsewhere cause deoxygenation. The use of vast amounts of fertilizer may have unintended consequences for the environment by devastating rivers, waterways, and river endings through the accumulation of non-degradable toxins and nitrogen-bearing molecules that remove oxygen and cause non-aerobic processes to form.

Examples of infertile non-arable land being turned into fertile arable land include: Aran Islands: These islands off the west coast of Ireland (not to be confused with the Isle of Arran in Scotland's Firth of Clyde) were unsuitable for arable farming because they were too rocky. The people covered the islands with a shallow layer of seaweed and sand from the ocean. Today, crops are grown there, even though the islands are still considered non-arable. Israel: The construction of desalination plants along Israel's coast allowed agriculture in some areas that were formerly desert. The desalination plants, which remove the salt from ocean water, have produced a new source of water for farming, drinking, and washing. Slash and burn agriculture uses nutrients from the wood ash, but these are exhausted within a few years. Terra preta, fertile tropical soils produced by adding charcoal.

Land degradation

Examples Examples of fertile arable land being turned into infertile land include: Droughts such as the "Dust Bowl" of the Great Depression in the US turned farmland into desert. Each year, arable land is lost due to desertification and human-induced erosion. Improper irrigation of farmland can wick the sodium, calcium, and magnesium from the soil and water to the surface. This process steadily concentrates salt in the root zone, decreasing productivity for crops that are not salt-tolerant. Rainforest deforestation: The fertile tropical forests are converted into infertile desert land. For example, Madagascar's central highland plateau has become virtually totally barren (about ten percent of the country) as a result of slash-and-burn deforestation, an element of shifting cultivation practiced by many natives. According to a study published in the journal, Science, toxic heavy metals can contaminate arable land.

See also Development easement Land use statistics by country List of environment topics Soil fertility

References

External links

Article from Technorati on Shrinking Arable Farmland in the world Surface area of the Earth