# **Section 5. Conclusion**

This paper, to our knowledge, is the first to try and characterize the dynamics of cropland using a global georeferenced dataset combined with both geographic characteristics and national-level economic and institutional contexts. Our two-stage approach allows us to disentangle the purely geographic effects at the granular local level from the national level contexts. Beyond the expected role played by local geographic characteristics (i.e., droughts driving land degradation) or access to markets (with proximity to cities stimulating conversion to cropland), a key contribution of this study is to show that national economic contexts and national institutions matter. The pressure on land resources as proxied by a low amount of cropland per capita can accelerate cropland loss. Similarly, weak land governance and economic inequality can also accelerate cropland loss, with both channels possibly percolating through agricultural practices that facilitate land degradation. Interestingly, we find that although geographic characteristics explain movements in and out of cropland, national-level variables are less able to explain movements into cropland. This could be due to the specific role of government policies in putting land into cultivation, which could not be captured with globally available data.

Our paper focuses on the extensive margin, i.e., on the expansion or shrinkage of land put into cultivation. Other adjustments could nevertheless occur through the intensive margin, i.e., with the intensification of cultivation. Although data has become increasingly available to measure “greenness” or “biomass” (e.g., using the Normalized Vegetation Index or the Net Primary Product), such measures do not necessarily capture well cropland productivity and do not differentiate between vegetation and cropland, making it difficult to use them as proxies for cultivation intensity. A study of cultivation intensity would instead require a comprehensive dataset ideally accounting for crop type, the frequency of cultivation, and cultivation schedules that are very likely to vary across locations, which is presently unavailable at the global scale.

Even though this study shows that the global cropland mass is not undergoing drastic increases (a .25 percent increase over 15 years), there are significant movements in both directions that balance one another. With varying degrees of exposure to climate change, conflicts concentrating in some regions of the world, and uneven demographic changes, these movements could result in a reshuffling of global cropland. Identifying the factors driving these changes as we do in this paper is a first step to anticipating the direction of these movements and the role that policies can play in addressing these emerging challenges.

# **Acknowledgments**

This study was prepared as background research to the World Bank report “Land Matters. Can Better Governance and Management of Scarcity Avoid a Looming Crisis in the Middle East and North Africa?” (Corsi and Selod, forthcoming) , which was prepared for the Chief Economist office of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region of the World Bank. The authors are grateful to Roberta Gatti, Daniel Lederman, Gilles Duranton and Rabah Arezki for guidance and useful comments as well as to participants to the 2nd Arab Land Conference (Cairo, February 2021) where the paper was presented.

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