Environmental footprint accounting has become a central analytical approach for evaluating the sustainability of food and agricultural systems, as it connects food provision to biophysical resource use and environmental pressure across supply chains. Early studies relied on single indicators such as carbon, water, land, or nutrient footprints, which provide useful insights but may lead to incomplete or misleading conclusions when used in isolation. This limitation has driven the development of integrated “footprint family” approaches that jointly evaluate multiple environmental dimensions. Vanham et al., (2019) linked these approaches to the water-energy-food-ecosystem nexus and the Sustainable Development Goals, while Wu et al., (2021) aligned them with planetary-boundary thinking, highlighting the need to assess sustainability relative to absolute ecological limits. Methodological advances have further extended these frameworks into decision-support tools, as demonstrated by Wang et al., (2022).
       
Integrated approaches have also enabled the development of composite indicators of environmental pressure. Xian et al., (2023) introduced an Agricultural Environmental Footprint Index combining land, water, carbon and nutrient dimensions, revealing an important sustainability paradox: environmental pressure per unit of output may decline even as total pressure increases due to production expansion. This “efficiency–scale” tension is particularly relevant for cereals, which are central to global food security.
       
At the same time, footprint research has expanded to consumption and dietary patterns, emphasizing the role of cereals in shaping environmental impacts. Vanham et al. (2018, 2021) show that cereals account for a significant share of dietary water footprints, while Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2018) highlight their contribution to nutrient-related pollution. Production-level evidence suggests that technological improvements may shift rather than uniformly reduce environmental impacts (Tomaz et al., 2021) and household-level studies indicate that footprints vary across socio-economic contexts (Sun et al., 2021; Shi et al., 2022). However, most existing studies remain regional and rarely incorporate global trade-adjusted food availability.
       
International trade represents a critical dimension of the food security-environment nexus. While trade enhances food security by redistributing supply, it may also externalize environmental pressure. Konar et al., (2016) showed that trade can increase global efficiency while intensifying resource use in exporting regions, consistent with the broader view that footprints reflect the appropriation of natural capital along supply chains (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014). Decoupling studies further indicate that environmental intensity may decline even as systems expand, although such findings are typically context-specific (Huang et al., 2021). Raghuramapatruni et al., (2026). Addressed that incorporating legumes into diets can enhance nutritional value and their usage largely depended on consumer preferences and purchasing intentions, which can be influenced by increased awareness and knowledge about legumes. The study focused on the benefits legumes provide, the factors influencing consumer preferences and purchase intentions. It also examined legumes as a sustainable protein alternative to animal meat. The findings of the study indicated that increasing the usage of legumes in traditional diets can be facilitated by incorporating legume-derived components into other food items. Mutetwa et al. (2026). Showed Horned melon substantial potential for agricultural progress and improved climate resilience within Zimbabwe. Addressed the gap, by a mixed-methods in ward 20, 21 and 27 of Mutoko district, involving 135 randomly selected smallholder farmers. The finding revealed a strong positive Pearson correlation (r = 0.801) between perceived income benefits and the land area allocated to horned melon, indicating that economic incentives were primary drivers of cultivation decisions.; however, a positively skewed distribution indicated that some farmers achieved significantly higher volumes. These outcomes collectively underscored the horned melon’s rising economic relevance and highlight the crucial need for targeted support to fully maximize its role in rural livings and sustainable agriculture.
       
GAI et al. (2026). Investigated the impact of active oil rigs (ARIGS) on agricultural green total factor productivity (AGTFP) in 12 organization of the petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) during the period from 1998 to 2019. Estimated a fixed-effects panel data model exploring the association between ARIGS, Oil Production (OPROD), GDP per capita, Population (POP) and AGTFP. The findings showed that AGTFP was negatively affected by ARIGS, a relationship mediated by OPROD. GDP alleviates the adverse effects of ARIGS and POP amplifies them.
       
Despite these advances, there is a lack of global, commodity-specific analyses that jointly link cereal production, trade, per-capita food supply and emissions intensity within a unified framework. This gap is significant because cereals are the backbone of global diets while exerting considerable environmental pressure.
       
This study addresses this gap by conducting a global food footprint analysis of cereals for the period 2010-2024 using FAOSTAT data. It integrates production, trade, food supply and emissions indicators and applies trend analysis, structural break detection, LMDI decomposition and elasticity-based models to distinguish between scale-driven expansion and efficiency gains. By explicitly linking food security outcomes to environmental pressure, the study provides new evidence on whether cereal system growth reflects genuine sustainability improvements or increasing environmental burden.

The empirical framework proceeds in five sequential stages: (1) construction of food-footprint indicators, (2) long-run trend estimation, (3) structural break detection, (4) LMDI decomposition of scale versus intensity effects and (5) elasticity-based regression analysis of trade exposure and decoupling dynamics.
       
This study develops an integrated food-footprint accounting-econometric framework to assess whether the recent expansion in global cereal availability has been accompanied by measurable efficiency gains in emissions and land use and/or a scale- and trade-driven expansion of environmental pressure. Conceptually, the approach builds on the environmental footprint family perspective that stresses multi-dimensional sustainability and trade-offs (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014; Vanham et al., 2019; Matuštík and Kočí, 2021) and is aligned with the planetary-boundary perspective (Wu et al., 2021; Xian et al., 2023). Empirically, the analysis is implemented for a global, commodity-specific cereal system, explicitly integrating production scale, international trade exposure, per-capita food supply, emissions intensity and supply-chain emissions.
       
The additive LMDI method is preferred because it is residual-free, path-independent and widely used in environmental decomposition studies. Log-log regression models are employed because coefficients can be interpreted as elasticities and to reduce heteroskedasticity and scale effects. Non-parametric Mann-Kendall and Sen slope tests are used alongside parametric models to strengthen inference in short annual time series.
       
All data are obtained from FAOSTAT (FAO, 2025), providing harmonized global coverage and transparent definitions. The study focuses on cereals excluding beer, given their centrality to food security and their documented importance in environmental footprint research (Vanham et al., 2018; Green et al., 2018; Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2018). The sample period is 2010-2024 (annual), chosen to capture post-2010 trade deepening, evolving emissions accounting and recent shifts in global agri-food pressures.
       
Let t index years. Core FAOSTAT variables include harvested area A_t, production Q_t, imports and exports in quantity and value (IMQ_t,IMV_t,XQ_t,XV_t), per-capita cereal food supply FS_t, import indices (IMQI_t,IMUVI_t,IMVI_t), emissions intensities for non-rice cereals EI_t^CER and rice EI_t^RICE and total pre- and post-production emissions PPE_t. All symbols, units and variable definitions are summarized in Table 1.


       
Following consumption-based footprint logic applied in food and diet footprint studies (Vanham et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2021), the per-capita carbon food footprint of cereals is defined as:

CFP_t =  FS_t × EI_t            (1)        

 
Where,
CFP_t  = Per-capita carbon food footprint (e.g., kg CO₂eq per capita per year).
FS_t  = Per-capita cereal food supply (kg/capita/year).
EI_t  = Emissions intensity (kgCO₂eq/kg).
       
Given well-established differences between rice and non-rice cereals, particularly methane emissions in paddy systems, emissions intensity is treated in two ways:

- Separate intensities for non-rice cereals and rice: (EI_t^CER, EI_t^RICE), consistent with crop-system evidence and footprint studies (Green et al., 2018; Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2018).
- Weighted intensity as a robustness case:

EI_t = ω_t EI_t^RICE +  (1 - ω_t)EI_t^CER                     (2)

 
Where,
ω_t = Rice share in cereal output.  
Land pressure is captured using a land requirement indicator:

Where,
A_t = Harvested area (ha)
Q_t = Cereal production (t).
       
This indicator measures land use per unit output and is consistent with land footprint and carrying-capacity perspectives in food sustainability research (Lombardi et al., 2021).
       
To incorporate downstream emissions (processing, transport, storage), a supply-chain emissions intensity indicator is defined as:

 
Where,
PPE_t = Denotes total pre and post-production emissions (kt CO₂eq, AR5).
Q_t = Output.
       
This explicitly extends footprint accounting beyond the farm gate, consistent with calls to avoid single-stage sustainability inference (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014; Matuštík and Kočí, 2021).
       
To evaluate the trade channel, import-based trade intensity measures are constructed as:

 
Where,
IMQ_t  and IMV_t = Import quantity and import value, respectively.
       
These indicators capture how strongly global cereal availability is mediated through international markets, aligning with the “virtual resource/footprint trade” logic (Konar et al., 2016). Import-based trade indicators are interpreted as proxies for the degree to which cereal availability depends on international markets and for the potential spatial displacement of embodied environmental pressure across exporting and importing regions.
       
To quantify average annual growth/decline rates, log-linear time trend models are estimated:

ln(Y_t) = α + βt + ε_t                      (6)

 
Where,
Y_t = Includes key outcomes and drivers (CFP_t,PPE_t, EI_t,FS_t, LFP_t,Q_t,IMQ_t,SCI_t).
β = Interpreted as an approximate annual percentage change.
       
Estimation uses Newey-West HAC standard errors to address heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation common in annual environmental time series (Huang et al., 2021).
       
To strengthen inference in small samples and under non-normality, monotonic trends are cross-validated using the Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator, which are frequently used in environmental and footprint time series applications (Vanham et al., 2018; Shi et al., 2022).

Given non-linear evolution in global food and environmental systems, Bai-Perron multiple structural break tests are applied to core footprint and emissions indicators:

                                              ln(Yt) = α_j + β_jt + ε_t,                    ε_t = T_j-1 + 1,…..,T_j                            (7)                        

 
Where,
j = Indexes regimes.
       
Breakpoint evidence is used to (i) re-estimate trends by subperiods and (ii) interpret whether changes correspond to trade deepening, shocks, or emissions-reporting transitions, consistent with the trade-environment literature emphasis on non-linear dynamics (Konar et al., 2016).
       
To disentangle scale/availability effects from efficiency effects, the study applies additive Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition, which is theoretically consistent and residual-free (Ang, 2005).
       
Given CFP_t = FS_t. EI_t, the change from baseline 0 to T is decomposed as:

ΔCFP = ΔCFP_FS + ΔCFP_EI                     (8)

 
with

 
and the logarithmic mean

       
This tests whether emissions-intensity gains offset rising food availability, consistent with the efficiency–scale tension highlighted in footprint studies (Wu et al., 2021; Xian et al., 2023).
       
Using (PPE_t = Q_t.SCI_t), total supply-chain emissions changes are decomposed as:

ΔPPE =  ΔPPE_Q + ΔPPE_SCI           (11)

 
A positive ΔPPE_SCI indicates rising downstream emissions per unit output, consistent with supply-chain extension dynamics, while ΔPPE_Q captures scale expansion. Land-use changes are also decomposed as:

ΔA = ΔA_Q + ΔA_LFP                   (12) 

 
Because A_t = Q_t.LFP_t.
       
To test trade, scale and decoupling hypotheses, parsimonious log-log models are estimated:

ln(CFP_t) = α + β₁ ln(IMQ_t ) + β₂ ln(IMUVI_t) + β₃ ln(FS_t) + β₄ ln(Q_t) + u_t                   (13)

 
Here,
β₁ = Captures how import expansion relates to per-capita footprint pressure.
β₂ proxies compositional/price-quality effects.
The decoupling model is:

ln(PPE_t) = α + δln(FS_t) + u_t                       (14)

Relative decoupling is indicated when 0 < δ< 1, whereas absolute decoupling δ < 0. Values δ  < 1 imply no decoupling.
Intensity dynamics conditional on scale:

ln(EI_t) = α + θt + φln(Q_t) + u_t                 (15)

 
Where,
(θ<0) = Systematic efficiency improvements after accounting for scale.
       
All regressions are estimated with Newey–West HAC standard errors. Given the limited annual sample size, model specifications are kept parsimonious to avoid overfitting.
       
Robustness checks include methodological triangulation using Mann-Kendall and Sen slope tests; break-consistent re-estimation across Bai-Perron regimes; alternative trade specifications using FAOSTAT import indices (IMQIt,IMVIt); rice versus non-rice emissions-intensity treatment and sample-period sensitivity using full-sample and pre-2023 estimates (Green et al., 2018; Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2018; Matuštík and Kočí, 2021; Vanham et al., 2018; Shi et al., 2022).
       
This methodology contributes by operationalizing a global cereal food footprint that links food security to environmental pressure, distinguishing scale-driven from efficiency-driven changes through LMDI and providing trade-adjusted elasticity evidence on decoupling and footprint amplification (Hoekstra and Wiedmann, 2014; Vanham et al., 2019; Ang, 2005; Wu et al., 2021; Xian et al., 2023; Konar et al., 2016; Huang et al., 2021).
       
The analysis relies on globally aggregated FAOSTAT data, which ensures comparability but may mask regional heterogeneity, measurement revisions and country-level structural differences. Therefore, results should be interpreted as system-level global evidence rather than region-specific causal estimates.

To improve interpretability, the empirical findings are presented sequentially. Table 2 summarizes the main characteristics of global cereal production, food availability, trade and environmental indicators over the period 2010-2024. Global cereal production expanded substantially, rising from approximately 2.47 billion tons in 2010 to over 3.13 billion tons in 2024. In contrast, harvested area increased at a considerably slower pace, indicating that a non-trivial share of output growth was achieved through yield and land-use efficiency improvements rather than proportional land expansion.


       
Despite this production growth, per-capita cereal food supply remained remarkably stable, fluctuating within a narrow band of roughly 175-178 kg per capita per year. This pattern suggests that aggregate production increases primarily accommodated global population growth rather than driving higher individual-level cereal consumption. At the same time, international trade intensified markedly, as reflected in rising import quantities and values, underscoring the increasing globalization of cereal supply chains.
       
Environmental indicators display a clear divergence between intensity and scale. Emissions intensity for cereals excluding rice declined sharply over the sample period, while rice emissions intensity also exhibited a gradual reduction. However, total pre- and post-production emissions increased from about 4.38 to 5.25 Gt CO₂eq, revealing that absolute environmental pressure continued to rise despite efficiency improvements.
       
Across all specifications, two findings emerge as central. First, absolute environmental pressure continued to rise despite declining emissions intensity, indicating that efficiency gains were outweighed by production expansion. Second, greater trade intensity is associated in several models with higher embodied environmental pressure, suggesting that globalization may redistribute rather than eliminate cereal-system footprints.
 
Long-run trends in production, trade and environmental pressure
 
Log-linear time with HAC standard errors, complemented by non-parametric trend tests, are reported in Table 2. Global cereal production shows a significant positive trend, growing at about 1.6% annually. Harvested area also increases, but at a lower rate (0.4%), confirming that the role productivity improvements.
       
International trade expanded faster than production, with import quantities and values growing at over 3% annually. In contrast, per-capita food supply shows no significant trend, reinforcing that system expansion is driven by aggregate scale rather than individual level.
       
Environmental trends show that emissions intensity declined strongly, while total emissions increased by about 1.2% annually. Land footprint intensity also declined, indicating improved land-use efficiency. As a result, per-capita carbon food footprints declined modestly, driven primarily by efficiency gains. These results support hypothesis scale dominance and partial efficiency offset, suggesting relative rather than absolute decoupling.
 
Structural breaks and regime shifts in footprint dynamics
 
Bai-Perron tests identify statistically significant structural breaks in total supply-chain emissions around 2014 and 2020 and in per-capita carbon food footprints around 2020, indicating changes in the relationship between production, trade and emissions.
       
Bai-Perron tests identify structural breaks in total emissions around 2014 and 2020 and in per-capita footprints around 2020, indicating changes in the relationship between production, trade and emissions. Breakpoints around 2014 may reflect shifts in commodity markets and trade patterns, while those near 2020 are plausibly linked to pandemic-related disruptions and supply-chain adjustments, highlighting the importance of accounting for non-linear dynamics.
 
Decomposition of footprint drivers: Scale versus efficiency
 
The LMDI results (Table 3) show a clear asymmetry. While per-capita carbon footprints declined almost entirely due to emissions-intensity improvements, total emissions increased primarily due to production scale effects. Between 2010 and 2024, the per-capita carbon food footprint declined by about 24 kg CO₂eq. This reduction is almost entirely explained by declining emissions intensity, while food supply contributed negligibly.


       
In contrast, total emissions increased by roughly 0.87 Gt CO₂eq. Scale effects alone exceeded the total increase, while efficiency gains partially offset this growth. The results support hypothesis scale effect and partial offset, as supply-chain emissions contribute significantly to total footprint growth.
 
Elasticity-based relationships: Trade, food supply and environmental pressure
 
Elasticity estimates linking food footprints and emissions to trade and food supply variables are reported in Table 4. In the full sample (2010-2024), trade-related elasticities are imprecisely estimated and statistically insignificant, reflecting collinearity among global aggregates and limited degrees of freedom. However, in the pre-2023 subsample, import quantities exhibit a positive and statistically significant elasticity with respect to per-capita carbon food footprints. This result indicates that increased trade volumes are associated with higher embodied environmental pressure per capita, consistent with the hypothesis of trade-induced footprint amplification. For example, the pre-2023 elasticity of 0.094 implies that a 10% increase in import volumes is associated with an approximate 0.94% increase in per-capita cereal carbon footprint, holding other variables constant.


       
Food supply per capita also shows a positive elasticity in the restricted sample, while production scale enters with a strong negative coefficient. This pattern suggests that, conditional on food availability and trade exposure, larger production scale is correlated with lower per-capita footprints, reflecting economies of scale and technological efficiency gains.
       
Decoupling regressions reveal no statistically significant relationship between food supply per capita and total supply-chain emissions in either sample. This absence of a negative elasticity implies that global cereal availability has not achieved absolute decoupling from environmental pressure. Finally, emissions intensity regressions confirm a downward trend over the full sample, but this trend weakens or disappears once production scale is explicitly controlled for, indicating that intensity reductions are closely intertwined with scale-related technological dynamics rather than being purely time-driven.
 
Synthesis of results relative to the hypotheses
 
Production and trade have expanded rapidly, while per-capita food availability has remained broadly stable. Efficiency improvements in emissions and land use have reduced per-unit impacts and lowered per-capita carbon food footprints. However, these gains have been more than offset by scale effects, leading to continued growth in absolute environmental pressure. International trade appears to reinforce this pattern by redistributing and, in some cases, amplifying embodied emissions rather than delivering system-wide environmental relief.
       
Global cereal food security gains over 2010-2024 were achieved primarily through scale expansion and continued trade integration, while environmental efficiency gains were insufficient to stabilize total emissions. This reinforces the distinction between relative efficiency improvement and genuine absolute sustainability.
       
The results provide new global evidence on the evolving relationship between cereal food security and environmental pressure. Consistent with the environmental footprint family literature, the findings demonstrate that efficiency improvements alone are insufficient to ensure sustainability when staple food systems continue to expand in scale. While emissions intensity for cereals has declined substantially, total emissions associated with cereal supply chains have continued to increase, driven by rising production and trade volumes.
       
These results align closely with previous studies documenting the coexistence of efficiency gains and rising absolute environmental pressure in agriculture (Wu et al., 2021; Xian et al., 2023). However, by explicitly linking emissions intensity to food supply per capita and global trade, this study extends earlier production-centered analyses and provides a clearer food security-environment nexus perspective. The absence of a significant upward trend in per-capita cereal food supply suggests that environmental pressure has increased not because individuals consume substantially more cereals, but because the global system must supply a growing population through increasingly complex supply chains.
       
The decomposition analysis further supports this interpretation. Declines in per-capita carbon food footprints are driven primarily by emissions-intensity improvements, while production scale dominates changes in total emissions, reflecting a rebound-type mechanism in global food systems. Similar findings are reported in the literature (Wu et al., 2021; Xian et al., 2023).
       
The distinction between relative and absolute decoupling is critical. The results indicate relative decoupling, where emissions intensity declines, but no evidence of absolute decoupling, where total environmental pressure would decrease alongside expanding food supply. This implies that efficiency strategies alone are insufficient to maintain sustainability within planetary limits.
       
Trade-related elasticity results highlight the dual role of international cereal trade. Trade enhances food security by reallocating supply and buffering shocks, but the positive association between imports and per-capita food footprints suggests that trade may also amplify to the externalize environmental pressure. This finding is consistent with virtual water and embodied footprint studies (Konar et al., 2016).
       
At the same time, global averages may conceal regional heterogeneity. Major exporting regions may bear disproportionate environmental burdens, while import-dependent countries benefit from food security gains. Future research using bilateral or regional data could examine these asymmetries in greater detail.
       
Taken together, the findings imply that global cereal food security gains over the past decade have been achieved primarily through technological and efficiency improvements, but not through genuine environmental decoupling.
       
From a policy perspective, the results underscore the importance of moving beyond narrow efficiency metrics toward system-level food footprint assessments. Relevant policy instruments include low-carbon logistics, improved input efficiency, reductions in post-harvest losses and greater environmental transparency in agri-food trade. For cereals, the challenge is not to constrain availability, but to ensure that future food security strategies operate within planetary limits.
       
Several limitations should be acknowledged. The analysis relies on globally aggregated FAOSTAT data, which may mask regional heterogeneity. Emissions estimates are subject to measurement uncertainty and the time series remains relatively short. Accordingly, the findings should be interpreted as global system-level evidence rather than country-specific causal estimates.

This study provides a global, cereal-specific assessment of the food security-environment nexus by integrating production, trade, food supply per capita and emissions intensity within a unified food footprint framework for the period 2010-2024.
       
The results show that global cereal production and trade have expanded significantly over the study period, while per-capita cereal food supply has remained broadly stable. At the same time, emissions intensity for cereals has declined markedly, reflecting technological improvements and efficiency gains within production systems. However, these efficiency improvements have not translated into absolute reductions in environmental pressure. Total pre and post-production emissions associated with global cereal systems have continued to rise, driven primarily by scale effects linked to production growth and increasingly trade-intensive supply chains.
       
Elasticity estimates indicate that international trade and food supply dynamics are not environmentally neutral. While trade supports food availability, higher import volumes are associated with higher embodied environmental pressure per capita, suggesting spatial redistribution and amplification of environmental footprints. Together, these findings demonstrate relative decoupling without evidence of absolute decoupling. These results contribute to the growing literature on environmental footprint families and planetary boundary–oriented sustainability assessment by providing a commodity-specific, global perspective that explicitly links food security outcomes to environmental pressure.
       
From a policy perspective, improving production efficiency alone is unlikely to achieve sustainability. Ensuring food security within planetary limits will require complementary measures that address supply-chain emissions, trade-related footprint displacement, food loss and waste and the alignment of global food and trade policies with absolute environmental targets.
       
Future research could extend this framework by integrating additional footprint dimensions, such as water and nutrient pollution and by combining global footprint accounting with regional or household-level analyses to capture distributional and equity implications.
 
Author contributions
 
Sharafeldin Alaagib conceptualized and designed the study, supervised the research process and contributed to data analysis and interpretation. Yosef Alamri contributed to study design, conducted statistical analysis, processed preliminary results and drafted the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.
 
Funding
 
This research received no external funding.

The authors disclosed no conflict of interest.