ABSTRACT
Half of all the children alive today will live into the 22nd century. Sustainable agriculture will be essential for making sure they live healthy lives on a flourishing planet. There are two components to this challenge. First, the world’s farmers will need to produce more from existing farmland. Second, farmers will need to transition to new ways of producing food that build up ecosystems and communities. There are three steps to this transition: increasing efficiency; substituting existing technologies and practices with new ones; and, finally, redesigning entire farming systems at scale. There is no single way to do this, across all farming landscapes. Neither is the task ever complete. But sustainable intensification is both desirable and practical, and there is plenty of evidence to show how.
