FLAGRI Scenario Builder · settings & clarification Working draft — Page 2 of a multi-page builder
FLAGRI Scenario Builder · Page 2 of 5

Food & Land

The study picked three foods that could each, on its own, feed the country — wheat OR potatoes OR dairy.6 That choice of foods is a framing decision, not a research finding. Each box below holds what a hectare grows and what the food contains; change any value, or bring your own crop.

Calculated land requirement — one of these, never all three
Wheat
—
or
Potatoes
—
or
Dairy
—
Using Page 1 paper defaults (5,114,800 people, one year). At paper values this matches Table 3 baseline land.
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Wheat

Paper default

Energy-dense grain. One hectare yields 9,900 kg,1 and each kg carries 14,000 kJ and 134 g protein.2 Land needed is driven by food energy — wheat is the least land-hungry of the three.

Yield — kg / ha / yearpaper: 9,900
Food energy — kJ / kgpaper: 14,000
Protein — g / kgpaper: 134
Worth knowing: the yield is NZ 2020 data and includes wheat currently grown for animal feed. And you can't eat raw wheat — milling, baking and their fuel needs are not modelled; potatoes need far less processing.

Future addition: processing losses & processing energy (milling, baking).

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Potatoes

Paper default

Huge bulk per hectare — 90,000 kg,3 each kg carrying 2,360 kJ and 20 g protein.2 Here protein, not calories, sets the land needed — potatoes need more land than energy alone suggests.

Yield — kg / ha / yearpaper: 90,000
Food energy — kJ / kgpaper: 2,360
Protein — g / kgpaper: 20
Worth knowing: the energy value is for one common type, raw with skin — databases range 2,130–2,420 kJ/kg, and the paper says so plainly. Yield is the mid-point of NZ study data. Edible with minimal processing, unlike wheat.

Future addition: storage losses and seed-potato share of the harvest.

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Dairy

Paper default

Counted as milk solids: one hectare produces 1,232 kg of solids4 (that's 13,675 L of milk), each kg carrying 20,500 kJ and 302 g protein.2 By far the most land-hungry path of the three.

Yield — kg milk solids / ha / yearpaper: 1,232
Food energy — kJ / kg solidspaper: 20,500
Protein — g / kg solidspaper: 302
Worth knowing: milk is sometimes liquid, sometimes solids — nutrition is counted on solids, transport on litres (11.1 L per kg solids;5 1.03 kg/L). Herd feed needs and seasonal milking patterns are not modelled.

Future addition: processing energy for drying milk to solids (to check with study authors).

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Your own crop

Planned

The heart of the open builder: add any crop or veggie — kūmara, maize, barley, pumpkin — with your own figures for yield, energy and protein, and it joins the comparison as one more alternative.

Crop nameyours
Yield — kg / ha / yearyours
Energy & protein — kJ / kg · g / kgyours
Worth knowing: user-added crops carry no paper backing — they will always be badged as your own figures, kept clearly apart from the published values.

Planned: multiple custom crops, saved locally; growing-cycle fields when crop cycles arrive.

⠿ Boxes are self-contained settings modules — drag a header to reorder. The same module can be placed on any page of the builder later.

References for this page

  1. NZ Grain and Seed Trade Association (2020) — wheat yield, NZ 2020, including animal-feed wheat (Table 2).
  2. NZ Institute of Plant and Food Research (2022) — food energy and protein contents for wheat, potatoes and milk solids (Table 2).
  3. Reid & Morton (2019) — potato yield, mid-point of NZ study data (Table 2).
  4. DairyNZ (2023) — NZ national average milk solids 2020/21, 1,232 kg/ha ↔ 13,675 L/ha (Table 2).
  5. Livestock Improvement Corporation (2020) — 11.1 L milk per kg milk solids; milk mass 1.03 kg/L (Table 2).
  6. Boyd M, Ragnarsson S, Terry E, Payne B & Wilson N (2024). Risk Analysis. DOI 10.1111/risa.14297 — §2.2 & Figure 1: each food is analysed in isolation; land requirement = max(energy-based, protein-based), Table 3.

In the full builder, all references live on one dedicated page; boxes carry only the small numbers.