Decoupling the food supply from impacts on forest threatened species: rethinking suitable crop areas for food production

• Develops a Risk-Weighted Forest Loss metric for cross-region/crop impact comparison. • Inform lower-risk crop and origin selections globally, with 10-km spatial resolution. • Recommends cross-sector actions beyond the food industry when risks remain high. Balancing global crop supplies and biodiversity conservation requires that consumers consider the biodiversity impacts of food production. Here, we computed the impacts of food production on threatened forest species per 10-km grid using species’ extinction risk. We then apportioned these impacts across crops, regions, and threatening drivers to identify mitigation options. We found that 43 % of the impacts on global forest species occur in Southeast Asia, with 40 % concentrated in Latin America. In 2010–2020, food imports by G20 countries increased by a factor of 1.4, but the impact on biodiversity was amplified to 1.7 times, especially as imports from these two regions increased. Our results highlight the urgency of decoupling the food supply from biodiversity impacts, reevaluating suitable areas for food production to achieve fewer impacts, and implementing impact mitigation measures collaboratively with other sectors of the food industry to ensure food supply security.