Growing mega-cities will displace vast tracts of farmland by 2030, study says

Cropland losses will have consequences especially for Asia and Africa, which will experience growing food insecurity as cities expand

Our future crops will face threats not only from climate change, but also from the massive expansion of cities, a new study warns. By 2030, it's estimated that urban areas will triple in size, expanding into cropland and undermining the productivity of agricultural systems that are already stressed by rising populations and climate change.

Roughly 60% of the world's cropland lies on the outskirts of cities-and that's particularly worrying, the report authors say, because this peripheral habitat is, on average, also twice as productive as land elsewhere on the globe.