CO2 fertilization has improved crop yields so much that demand for agricultural land has actually peaked. In future decades, less land will be needed to feed the world, and this despite the fact that demand for food and meat has exploded the last few decades due to large countries like China or India becoming richer.
![](https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Peak-agricultural-land.png)
![](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2022/05/Global-decoupling-land-and-food.png)
Without this increase in agricultural yields from CO2, food prices would have been higher and hundreds of million more poor people around the world would have been exposed to starvation.
In France for example
the extent of forest cover today has doubled since the middle of the 19th century, Nearly one third of the country is forest cover, this is the greatest extent
since the early medieval period. This is due to both the forest growing faster due to CO2 fertilization, and agriculture needing less land to meet demand for cereals.
Quote:
In 1850, the forest in France only covered 8.9 million hectares. Today, it covers 16 million hectares.
https://www.the-forest-time.com/en/history-of-the-french-forest-5cbebcf15Higher CO2 concentrations = more photosynthesis, more forests, more green cover especially in dry climates like Africa's Sahel.
![](https://i0.wp.com/cosy.com/Science/CO2-pineGrowth100120half.jpg)
The huge benefits of higher CO2 levels are never acknowledged or accounted for in the doomer CO2 narrative.