Talk:Arable land

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Fixing the definition, once and for all[edit]

I had some confusion about what "arable land" is, and this article didn't do a good job of defining what it was. In fact, it got a lot of it wrong, and sources are dead or missing. After reading the comments on this talk page it appears that I'm not alone in thinking this is a problem, so I've decided to fix it and do a rewrite of the opening definition.

Here's what the previous definition said:

In geography and agriculture, arable land (from Latin arare; “To plough, To farm”) is land that can be used for growing crops.[1] It includes all land under annual crops (double-cropped areas are counted only once), temporary meadows for mowing or market and kitchen gardens and land temporarily fallow (less than five years). Abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is not included in this category. Data for arable land are not meant to indicate the amount of land that is potentially cultivable.[2] Arable land is a category of agricultural land, which, according to Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) definition, additionally includes land under permanent or perennial crops, such as fruit plantations, as well as permanent pastures, for grazing of livestock.

First of all, the opening sentence, "arable land is land that can be used to grow crops". If you think about it, that doesn't exclude anything, and there are no working sources either... Not good.

Some of it also appears to be wrong, such as: "Arable land is a category of agricultural land, which, according to Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) definition, additionally includes land under permanent or perennial crops, such as fruit plantations, as well as permanent pastures, for grazing of livestock." Don't know who wrote this, but it's not accurate...

I've changed it to:

In geography and agriculture, arable land (from Latin arāre; “To plough, To farm”) is land ploughed or tilled regularly, generally under a system of crop rotation.[3]

According definitions and survey recommendations by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), used by for example Eurostat and the World Bank, arable land is agricultural land occupied by crops both sown and harvested during the same agricultural year, sometimes more than once. Land is also considered arable if used as temporary meadows for mowing or pasture, market and kitchen gardens; as well as temporarily fallow land — not seeded for one or more growing seasons, yet not left idle for more than five years. [4][5][6]

Permanent crops that occupy the land for some years and doesn't need to be replanted after each annual harvest — like coffee, rubber, flowering shrubs, fruit, nut trees and vines — is not counted as arable land, but as permanent cropland.[7][8]

Permanent pastures and meadows used for grazing, land mowed for hay or silage not included in a crop rotation scheme, and abandoned land resulting from shifting cultivation is also not counted as arable, along with lands with built-on and barren areas, forests and woodlands.[9][10]

I've tried to make the definition simple and straightforward, but it's bound to get somewhat verbose since it's a statistical definition used by organizations like the FAO, USDA/NASS, Eurostat and the World Bank. It could be a lot worse, and most people will probably stop at the first sentence anyway, since that's enough for the layman. I've added a bunch of working citations to this definition also. Gavleson (talk) 04:44, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Sullivan (2003). Economics: Principles in Action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 480. ISBN 0-13-063085-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location (link)
  2. ^ "ESS Production Definitions". FAO.org.
  3. ^ "Glossary: Arable land - Statistics explained". Eurostat. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  4. ^ "FAOSTAT - Concepts & definitions - Glossary (list)". FAO. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  5. ^ "Agriculture statistics at regional level". Eurostat. Retrieved 2 November 2013. Eurostat has followed the FAO's recommendation on the worldwide decennial agricultural census since the 1970 round
  6. ^ "Agriculture & Rural Development". The World Bank. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  7. ^ "Glossary: Permanent Crops - Statitics explained". Eurostat. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  8. ^ "The World Factbook, Field Listing: Land use". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  9. ^ "Glossary: Permanent grassland - Statistics explained". Eurostat. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
  10. ^ "Crops statistics - Concepts, definitions and classifications" (Word Document). FAO Statistics. Retrieved 2 November 2013.
'Strongly disagree.' "Arable land" means land that's suitable for annual (or more frequent) cultivation. If a government or other organization wants to compile statistics, they have to operationalize the concept somehow: you can't meaningfully gather statistics about what might have been, so they classify land according to its actual use. Many dictionaries confirm that in ordinary English, the word refers to suitability. The article should say basically what it has for at least the last several months: give the plain-English meaning first (one citation to the OED is enough), and then go on to how it's operationalized. --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 19:10, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Inaccurate description of FAO, World Bank and Eurostat usage of “arable land”[edit]

The article does not accurately represent the meaning of “arable land” as used by the FAO, the World Bank and Eurostat. The article describes it as land that “can actually be farmed (at minimum every five years) with crops that are sown and harvested within the same agricultural year. “ In fact, unlike the definition in the article’s first paragraph, the definitions used by these three agencies refer to land that is farmed..., not land that can actually be farmed. The latter encompasses a very much larger land area. Among other concerns, the erroneous description can lead readers to misinterpret very seriously the meaning of the article’s tabulated arable land data. The “Arable land area” section should explicitly state that the FAO definition applies to data in the table and that the CIA’s definition, which applies to this section’s map, is similar to that of the FAO. The article’s section on “Non-arable land” gets off to a problematic start by failing to acknowledge that the nature of non-arable land will differ greatly depending on which definition of arable land is being considered (i.e. whether the definition refers to potential or actual cultivation for crop production). For some land that is not arable according to the FAO definition, none of the listed limitations apply. . Moreover, this section fails to acknowledge that, regardless of the definition used, much non-arable land is agriculturally valuable for grazing of livestock, especially ruminants, camelids and equines. Because of the large area globally that is so used, this is an extremely serious omission.Schafhirt (talk) 16:50, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The data for this table was cited as being sourced in 2016, but utilises 2015-2019 statistics, indicating it has been updated without noting the new source. The original link to the data no longer works, and while the pre-2016 data can be verified through the additional Wayback machine link, where the table is listed as being last updated in 2014 (link). This link should ideally be updated in order to show where the 2014-2019 data has been sourced from, and the table itself could also be refreshed with more recent data (if possible), as the trends exhibited have potentially changed in recent years. In looking for more data I have found this link (link), which seems to give the entire current dataset, but I am unsure whether there is a processed form available which would show the ranked version specifically. Jackaloping (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]