ABSTRACT
The information available on the changing global cropland situation indicates a growing worldwide shortage of productive cropland, acute land hunger in many countries, and soaring prices for farmland almost everywhere. The historical expansion of cultivated land has been closely related to the growth in human numbers. As human population continues to expand, it generates needs for land for purposes other than the production of food. Principal among these are urbanization, energy production, and transportation. Although the world demand for cropland is greater than ever before, the amount of cropland abandoned each year may also be at a record level. Glistening white expanses of heavily salted, abandoned cropland are visible from the air in countries traditionally dependent on irrigation, such as Iraq and Pakistan. The convulsive changes in the world food economy during the 1970s reflect in part the growing pressures on the cropland base.
