For the first time, satellite mapping of Latin America shows that the continent’s agricultural expansion has waned in the wake of the global economic downturn, according to UBC research.
“Nearly every agricultural region across Latin America slowed down in expansion from 2007 to 2013, compared to the previous six years,” says Jordan Graesser, the study’s lead author. Graesser is a visiting international student at UBC’s Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability.
The study, recently published in Environmental Research Letters, involved the first large-scale mapping of changes in cropland and pastureland over more than a decade at the continental scale, using satellite imagery.