The variable paths to sustainable intensification in agriculture
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The variable paths to sustainable intensification in agriculture Thomas K. Rudel 1 Received: 19 August 2020 / Accepted: 23 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Continuing environmental degradation amidst economic growth and population increase has underscored the desirability of pursuing sustainable intensification in agriculture. In theory, it would increase the volume of agricultural production without further degrading the natural environment or compromising the food security of the world’s poorest people. In practice, difficult choices involving trade-offs between agricultural development and environmental protection have characterized most efforts at sustainable intensification. Against this backdrop, a series of studies have tried to identify an optimal strategy for sustainable intensification. This article argues that there is no one optimal strategy. Rather, optimal strategies vary across socio-ecological contexts. Distinct strategies of sustainable intensification have emerged (1) in peri-urban agriculture, (2) on large farms situated on prime agricultural lands, and (3) in smallholder-dominated agricultural districts. Government interventions to promote sustainable intensification should recognize and build on these distinct, place-based economic, and agro-ecological dynamics. Keywords Sustainable intensification . Agriculture . Trade-offs . Peri-urban agriculture
Introduction During the past ten years, “sustainable intensification” has become widely regarded as the necessary path for agricultural development under the difficult circumstances of climate change, population growth, and continued economic development (Rockström et al. 2017; Pretty 2018). Projected, near-term increases in the size and affluence of the human population argue for expanded agricultural production, but the expansion would need to occur without further degrading the natural environment, and it would need to secure adequate supplies of food for the world’s destitute peoples. With these requisites in mind, a series of analysts have during the last decade tried to identify an optimal global path for sustainable intensification. This analytic strategy has encountered difficulties. In theory, sustainable intensification occurs when agricultural production on a tract of land increases at the same time that Communicated by Wolfgang Cramer * Thomas K. Rudel [email protected] 1
Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA
the agro-ecology of the larger landscape becomes more robust (Pretty 2018). In practice, efforts at sustainable intensification often generate trade-offs in which gains on one dimension, like agricultural production, offset losses on another dimension, like environmental conservation. Faced with these ubiquitous trade-offs, analysts of sustainable intensification have recently begun to take an issue with optimization approaches, arguing that there is no generally “superior” form of sustainable intensification. Rather, the optim
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