Cropping intensity gaps: The potential for expanded global harvest areas
To feed the world’s growing population, more food needs to be produced. In addition to cropland expansion, which faces a variety of constraints, increasing cropping intensity may provide a promising means of boosting global crop production. Yet information on the size and location of cropping intensity gaps—the difference between the maximum cropping intensity that is theoretically possible and the cropping intensity that is realized today—for current global croplands, and how much additional production can potentially be achieved by closing these gaps, is lacking.