New paper: Putting back meaning into “sustainable intensification”

By Jacqueline Loos and Joern Fischer

J. Loos, D. J. Abson, M. J. Chappell, J. Hanspach, F. Mikulcak, M. Tichit, and J. Fischer, Putting back meaning into “sustainable intensification”, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, available on the Frontiers website (for those with subscriptions), or here.

Many recent high profile papers on food security argue something along these lines: First, food security is a growing concern in the light of global population growth, which is anticipated to exceed 9 billion people in the year 2050.  A growing human population (with diets shifting towards increasing use of animal proteins) will require larger amounts of food in the future. Second, to meet the future demand for food, an increase in food production is needed on a global scale. And finally: To achieve global food security without compromising even more of Earth’s surface for agricultural purposes, scientific literature and policy documents frequently…