Summary
This 2016 review argues that 20th-century agricultural intensification, whilst achieving food production targets, has incurred substantial environmental and health costs through over-reliance on fossil fuels, resource degradation, and biodiversity loss. The authors synthesise evidence that sustainable farming systems can simultaneously deliver food security, ecosystem services, and improved human health outcomes, and advocate for policy frameworks that quantify and internalise these ecosystem service values into future agricultural production models.
UK applicability
The paper's analysis of intensive agriculture's limitations and sustainable alternatives is directly relevant to UK farming policy, particularly in the context of post-Brexit agricultural support reform and the Environment Act 2021's focus on public goods. UK policy-makers have increasingly adopted ecosystem services language in designing subsidy schemes (e.g., Countryside Stewardship), though the integration remains incomplete.
Key measures
Ecosystem service valuation frameworks; biodiversity metrics; resource use efficiency; environmental and health costs of agricultural intensification
Outcomes reported
The paper examines how ecosystem services provided by diverse farming systems can be valued and mainstreamed into agricultural policy and practice. It synthesises evidence on the trade-offs between intensified monoculture agriculture and sustainable systems that deliver multiple ecosystem benefits.
Topic tags
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