Sustainable Agricultural Intensification

overview

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Overview

Food production efficiency needs to double in order to feed a growing global population using only currently available land, while protecting our living environment and conserving natural and agricultural biodiversity. Sustainable agricultural intensification provides the means to do this with limited available resources.

Sustainable Agricultural Intensification (SAI) is a concept that challenges global agriculture to achieve a doubling in world food production while sustaining the environment in which we live. SAI aims to increase agricultural output from the same available land area, while reducing the negative environmental impacts of agricultural technology*. The resources to achieve this increase in food production will not increase, so the efficiency with which they are used will have to be enhanced to ensure ecosystems services are maintained. SAI does this through increasing understanding and harnessing knowledge of ecological processes to increase food production and improve livelihoods.
* see 'Reaping the Benefits' (2009) - The Royal Society, ; 'Foresight. The Future of Food and Farming' (2011), Final Project Report, The Government Office for Science, London; 'Green Food Project' (2012) - Defra; The Montpellier Panel, 2013, 'Sustainable Intensification: A New Paradigm for African Agriculture' , London.