Let's take a closer look at the demand for land: Globally, there is 13.4 billion hectares of land available. In the diagram on the right , this corresponds to the green circle. Currently, a good third of this, 5 billion hectares, is used for agriculture. The area used for agriculture is further subdivided. Two-thirds is pasture, one-third is cropland. Globally, cropland accounts for about 1.4 billion hectares, or about 10% of the available land area. For those who like it visually: In the chart, the gray circle represents this share.
Arable land is used for a variety of purposes: The majority, almost 90%, is used for food and animal feed production. But industrial raw materials are also grown, for example cotton for clothing and absorbent cotton, energy plants for fuel production or medicinal plants for use in natural cosmetics and medicines. And: plants for our bioplastics! However, only 0.5 million hectares are needed for this today. That is 0.004% of the global land area or 0.01% of the area used for agriculture. In the diagram, this is the barely recognizable pink circle.