Agriculture and Environment: Wheat

Better Management Practices: Avoid Habitat Conversion

For a few thousand years, wheat cultivation expanded into areas of natural habitat.

By 2000, the area under cultivation had generally stabilised. The areas of expanding wheat cultivation are generally offset by areas that are no longer used for wheat.

Eliminating harmful subsidies
The main cause of the expansion of wheat cultivation into natural habitat is agricultural subsidies in the United States. Subsidies make production financially attractive under circumstances and conditions when it otherwise would not be.

While it is not clear if U.S. subsidies have forced other wheat producers to cultivate additional land to remain competitive, it is clear that eliminating subsidies would take pressure off the few native prairies in the United States that have managed to survive.

New genetically modified wheat varieties
Another factor that may contribute to the expansion of wheat production into pristine natural habitats in the future is the creation of genetically modified wheat that would extend the range where wheat can be grown. Changes in the nutrient or water requirements or the pest tolerances of wheat could allow wheat to be produced in areas where it has been possible in the past.

Plant breeding in the past has expanded the number of wheat varieties and the range of each. However, the changes that have resulted in the past are nothing like those that could occur through the development of genetically modified wheat varieties with today's technology.