Talk:Arable land

Inaccurate description of FAO, World Bank and Eurostat usage of “arable land”
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)

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)