Transforming land use – considerations for APAC

Alongside the Good Food Institute US’ release of “Transforming land use: Alternative proteins for U.S. climate and biodiversity success,” hereafter referred to as “the report,” this addendum assembled by GFI APAC provides comparative data for the APAC region to contextualise the report results and insights.

Underpinning the report is the globally applicable calculation that alternative proteins, on average per kilogram of protein, require 50 – 90 percent less land than animal proteins (Eshel et al. 2014; Poore and Nemecek 2018; Figure 1). Using this calculation, the report quantifies the biodiversity and carbon sequestration opportunities of restoring U.S. croplands that would no longer be required to produce food for the American population following a 50 percent shift from animal protein towards alternative proteins. 

The overarching conclusion is that large-scale uptake of alternative proteins could offer significant land use efficiency benefits: restoring only 2.5 percent of lands in the contiguous United States could help restore 64 percent of threatened ecosystems or a 22 percent increase in the net national carbon sink related to all land use, land use change, and forestry.

Figure 1. Land required per kilogram of protein production (m²/kg protein). Note: The cropland required to produce alternative proteins was calculated as an average of cropland use to produce cultivated meat (Sinke et al. 2022), biomass fermentation-derived meat (Kazer et al. 2021), soy-based meat with precision fermentation ingredient (Khan et al. 2019), and pea-based meat (Heller and Keoleian 2018).

The question is, could these benefits be realised in the APAC region?

The report deconstructed the regional variability in carbon sequestration opportunities that exist across the U.S. as highlighted by the greatest carbon offset potential, where current feed crop and modified pasture acreage overlay historical forest and riparian/wetland ecosystems.

The APAC region has significant potential in this regard as it represents roughly 19 percent of global forest (7 percent in East Asia, 7 percent in South and Southeast Asia, and 5 percent in Oceania (Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020), while Asia contains the largest proportion of global wetlands at 32 percent with an additional 3 percent in Oceania (Davidson, Finlayson, and Flute-Chouinard, 2018). Kozicka et al. (2023) calculated that considering global forest ecosystem restoration of key agricultural land facilitated by plant-based meat and milk alternative uptake doubles the calculated climate dividend of a 50 percent dietary shift—with the largest impact generated by China—while two of the largest biodiversity preservation beneficiaries would be China and Southeast Asia.

A 2023 report by Asia Research and Engagement calculated that for Asian countries to reach their net-zero climate goals in line with the Paris Agreement, a significant transformation of the food system towards alternative proteins will be necessary, even after factoring in emissions reductions such as a halt to deforestation and 100 percent transition to clean energy. Carbon sequestration from alternative proteins enabled land restoration could serve as an important lever to help achieve climate and biodiversity goals for APAC countries, with particular emphasis on China, as highlighted by previous global-level studies (Hayek et al. 2021; Kozicka et al. 2023).

Indeed, all 10 ASEAN nations have highlighted food and agriculture, water resources, forests, forestry, and biodiversity as the common priority sectors for climate change adaptation interventions, while financial incentive mechanisms such as REDD+ are already active in rewarding land use-based climate initiatives for developing economies. However, more granular analyses by governments and NGOs in the region are needed to quantify the potential climate dividend that land restoration and protection facilitated by alternative proteins could deliver in their specific geographies, while also maximising the socioeconomic benefits of such a transition.

How does U.S. agricultural land use data compare to the APAC regional context?

The report highlights that over 60 percent of land in the contiguous United States is agricultural land: within this, 33 percent of agricultural land is cropland and 67 percent of agricultural land is used for grazing livestock.

Extensive agricultural land use comparable to the U.S. is present in the APAC region, notably India (60 percent), mainland China (55 percent), Australia (47 percent), Thailand (46 percent), and the Philippines (43 percent), within which the U.S. also shares a high proportion of land for permanent grazing of livestock with China (75 percent) and Australia (91 percent) (Figure 2). These figures are important as the report does not include potential land use efficiency benefits of a shift to alternative proteins in the U.S. related to grazed lands such as rangeland or non-cropland pasture. This is a crucial consideration for Australia, where only 12.5 percent of agricultural land is used for modified pasture, while 79 percent is for grazing of native vegetation.

Figure 2. APAC agricultural land use breakdown—figure created using the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations Statistics Division (FAOSTAT) Land Use dataset.*
*GFI APAC acknowledges precise land use calculations likely differ for some countries based on national-level datasets but FAOSTAT allows for a region-level comparison.

In contrast to the U.S., permanent pasture land for grazing in tropical Southeast Asia is very limited (Ramankutty et al. 2008). The majority of agricultural land is therefore modified from its natural state with higher potential for climate and biodiversity benefits from alternative land use scenarios. For example, permanent pasture (modified or natural) as a percentage of agricultural land in Thailand (3 percent), Malaysia (3 percent), Vietnam (5 percent), and the Philippines (12 percent) is drastically lower than in the U.S. (Figure 2). As a result of limited arable land suitable for grazing in Japan and South Korea, permanent pasture land is also a significantly smaller fraction of their agricultural land (4  and 7 percentages, respectively; Figure 2).

To contextualise the scale of feed production and the alternate land use opportunity presented by alternative proteins in the APAC region, we can consider that it is the largest compound animal feed production sector in the world producing 475 million metric tons (MMT) in 2023 according to the AllTech 2024 Agri-Food Outlook. This is led by four of the world’s ten largest compound animal feed producers: China (262 MMT), India (53 MMT), Vietnam (24 MMT), and Japan (24 MMT). Other significant compound animal feed producers in the APAC region according to the AllTech 2022 Agri-Food Outlook are Thailand (approximately 20 MMT), South Korea (approximately 19 MMT), and the Philippines (approximately 14 MMT).

To dive deeper into these insights and many more, download GFI US’ land use analysis below.