Measuring sustainable intensification in smallholder agroecosystems: A review

Smith, Alex; Snapp, Sieglinde S.; Chikowo, Régis; Thorne, P.J.; Bekunda, Mateete; Glover, J.

doi:10.1016/j.gfs.2016.11.002

Cited by 178 publications

(150 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Loos et al (2014) also argued that the term sustainable intensification is potentially misleading because central tenets of sustainability are not adequately addressed. Smith et al (2017) tried to broaden the concept of sustainable intensification by including the human condition, nutrition, and social equity and tried to identify indicators and associated metrics, but noted that most current indicators are static and are for that reason difficult to use for evaluating pathways towards sustainability.…”

Section: Sustainable Intensificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable intensification in agriculture: the richer shade of green. A review

Struik¹,

Kuyper²

2017

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

299

200

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Agricultural intensification is required to feed the growing and increasingly demanding human population. Intensification is associated with increasing use of resources, applied as efficiently as possible, i.e. with a concurrent increase in both resource use and resource use efficiency. Resource use efficiency has agronomic, environmental, economic, social, trans-generational, and global dimensions. Current industrial agriculture privileges economic resource use efficiency over the other dimensions, claiming that that pathway is necessary to feed the world. Current agronomy and the concept of sustainable intensification are contested. Sustainable intensification needs to include clarity about principles and practices for priority setting, an all-inclusive and explicit cost-benefit analysis, and subsequent weighing of trade-offs, based on scientifically acceptable, shared norms, thus making agriculture "green" again. Here, we review different forms of intensification, different principles and concepts underlying them, as well as the norms and values that are needed to guide the search for effective forms of sustainable and ecological intensification. We also address innovations in research and education required to create the necessary knowledge base. We argue that sustainable intensification should be considered as a process of enquiry and analysis for navigating and sorting out the issues and concerns in agronomy. Sustainable intensification is about societal negotiation, institutional innovation, justice, and adaptive management. We also make a plea for at least two alternative framings of sustainable intensification: one referring to the need for "de-intensification" in high-input systems to become more sustainable and one referring to the need to increase inputs and thereby yields where there are currently large yield (and often also efficiency) gaps. Society needs an agriculture that demonstrates resilience under future change, an agronomy that can cope with the diversity of trade-offs across different stakeholders, and a sustainability that is perceived as a dynamic process based on agreed values and shared knowledge, insight, and wisdom.

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Section: Sustainable Intensificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable intensification in agriculture: the richer shade of green. A review

Struik¹,

Kuyper²

2017

Agron. Sustain. Dev.

299

200

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…articles 43,45,56). state that, "…nutrition is frequently cited as an indicator of human wellbeing in SI systems…" (Smith et al, 2015: 28) This suggests that the indicator 'nutritional status' reflects the social sustainability of an agricultural system (particularly in less economically developed regions) and runs counter to the criticism that the concept of SI is purely founded in the corporate-driven agenda for greater production.…”

Section: Resource Users Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable intensification – “oxymoron” or “third-way”? A systematic review

Mahon

Crute

Simmons

et al. 2017

Ecological Indicators

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Sustainable Intensification (SI) is a term that has been advanced to capture a concept that some consider as the 'third paradigm' for global agricultural development. However, the term has become subject to intense debates as well as scepticism and confusion regarding its meaning and the characteristics of production systems that could indicate SI (defined as "indicators"). This has resulted in a proliferation of literature. We have conducted a systematic review of a sample of this literature analysing the most commonly suggested indicators of SI in order to investigate the extent to which the critiques of SI are valid in their viewpoints that SI is an oxymoron, underpinned by a productivist agenda, and to identify the critical issues in the development of a comprehensive and unambiguous set of SI indicators. From 633 articles identified by a search of relevant databases, a sample of 75 articles were selected and analysed using the NVIVO™ software. The results were organised according to a Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) framework comprising seven sub-systems or components − resource system, resource units, governance system, resource users, interactions, outcomes, and environment. A total of 218 indicators (both positive and negative) were identified. Most of these indicators focused on the 'outcomes' of agricultural systems with the majority being related to agricultural production. Few indicators were identified as relating to the economic and societal dimensions of food systems. Whilst this potentially suggested a productivist bias in the current interpretation of SI it was difficult to draw a black and white conclusion, since for the other system components, the majority of the indicators suggested appeared to take a more holistic point-of-view and emphasised both productivity and sustainability of agricultural systems. Our analysis suggests that a key reason why SI may be viewed with scepticism is a lack of specificity and elucidation of the rationale, scale, and farm type for which SI is proposed. Moreover, a number of the indicators were so loosely defined that the interventions they imply could be enacted without due consideration of the social impacts of their adoption. We conclude that there is need to develop SI indicators according to specific farming types and scales and also with more consideration of the social and political dimensions of food systems in order to promote a constructive dialogue around the concept of SI to take place. Unless the concept of SI is described and measured in such a holistic and inclusive manner, it is unlikely to be accepted as a valid descriptor of sought-after agricultural practices by players in the Third Sector.

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“…Leaving ecosystem stability intact, the GPS is hard to preserve, the ecological crisis continues to develop, and the value of ecosystem services gradually declines [53]. At present, new forms of grain production, such as organic agriculture [54] and sustainable intensification agriculture [55] are emerging as a returning signal of the ecological attributes, thus reflecting the important function of sustainable of eco-environment for the GPS. The sustainability of the eco-environment corresponds to the ecological attributes of the GPS, reflecting the ecological trends of GPS transformation.…”

Section: Multi-dimensional Functions Of the Gpsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis Framework of China’s Grain Production System: A Spatial Resilience Perspective

Long

et al. 2017

Sustainability

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China's grain production has transformed from absolute shortage to a current structural oversupply. High-intensity production introduced further challenges for the eco-environment, smallholder livelihood, and the man-land interrelationship. Driven by urban-rural transformation, research on food security patterns and grain production has expanded into a new field. To analyze the challenges and required countermeasures for China's grain production system (GPS), this study constructed a theoretical GPS framework based on space resilience. Firstly, a new GPS concept was proposed and a functional system was established for protecting the regional food security, thus guaranteeing smallholder livelihood, stabilizing urban-rural transformation, and sustaining the eco-environment in terms of economic, social, and ecological attributes of the GPS. Secondly, based on a cross-scale interaction analysis that varied from a smallholder scale to a global scale, the systematic crisis of the GPS was analyzed. Thirdly, a cross-scale analytic framework of the GPS was formed from the perspective of spatial resilience, integrating both inner and external disturbance factors of the GPS. Both spatial heterogeneity and connectivity of internal and external disturbance factors are important contents of system space resilience. Finally, the hierarchy of spatial resilience of GPS became clear. The transformation of labor force and the land use transition form key thresholds of the GPS. In summary: based on protecting the basic functions of the GPS, the cross-scale effect of systematic disturbance factors and relevant countermeasures for spatial resilience are effectively influenced by the coordination of the interests of multiple stakeholders; spatial resilience is an effective analytical tool for GPS regulation, providing a reference for revealing the inherent mechanism and functional evolution of the GPS in the process of urban-rural transformation.

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Measuring sustainable intensification in smallholder agroecosystems: A review

Cited by 178 publications

References 66 publications

Sustainable intensification in agriculture: the richer shade of green. A review

Sustainable intensification in agriculture: the richer shade of green. A review

Sustainable intensification – “oxymoron” or “third-way”? A systematic review

Analysis Framework of China’s Grain Production System: A Spatial Resilience Perspective

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