Agriculture and Environment: Wheat

Environmental Impacts of Production: Habitat Conversion

Given that wheat is grown on more land than any other single crop, its historical impact on the environment has been considerable.

Habitat conversion for cultivation has been a very large environmental impact from wheat production in the past. The production of wheat, in fact, has created many of the current agropastoral landscapes that are seen as "natural" in Europe, northern Asia and the United States.

Subsidies, doing more harm than good
Habitat conversion continues to this day in such areas as the western United States, where subsidies make wheat production profitable in marginal areas that could not be farmed profitable otherwise. Many of the areas now under cultivation include some of the few remnants of blue stem prairie that had never before been ploughed.

While globally grasslands and savannas are not as biodiverse as many other terrestrial ecoregions, they are nonetheless unique. Furthermore, they provide essential ecosystem services (e.g., overall water retention and runoff and carbon sequestration) that biodiversity in other regions depend upon.

Threatening fragile ecosystems
The expansion of wheat production into fragile ecosystems of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres would threaten remaining biodiversity. While the consumption of wheat is certainly increasing in tropical countries, most production is still in the colder temperate regions because tropical wheat remains a poor producer compared to that produced in temperate zones.

Intensive breeding programs could certainly change this in the future. If that happens, it could become possible and even profitable to grow wheat on the savannas of such places as Africa.

Most of the temperate areas that are suited for wheat production are already under cultivation. The remaining areas include savannas with fewer water resources. To become productive these areas will require huge investments in irrigation infrastructure that will drastically change ecology and habitat.