Does sustainable intensification imply a particular system or philosophy of agriculture? What about the ‘more food’ issue – how much more, what kind of food, produced where and for whom? How much weight does one attach to the ‘sustainable’ as opposed to the ‘intensification’ part? And what happens when ethical concerns such as animal welfare are added to the mix?
It’s not surprising that people have interpreted ‘sustainable intensification’ in different ways. Some have endorsed it because they see it as equivalent with a system of production that already exists; others reject it for exactly same reasons. And many still argue that sustainable intensification is quite simply oxymoronic – the two words in the phrase are inherently incompatible.
Finally, there are some of us who see it as an aspiration of what needs to be achieved – a goal rather than a particular state of play.
First is that increases in food production are necessary but not sufficient. Many observers rightly point out that we already have enough food in the world to feed everyone – and yet people go hungry. They say that throwing more food at the issue is not going to solve what is at heart an economic and political problem: people are food insecure because of unbalanced power structures, because they cannot afford or access food or the necessary inputs for the means of production, because the shift towards increasingly resource intensive diets diverts essential resources from poor people, and because food losses and waste – the consequences of poverty on the one hand (poor infrastructure) and wealth (careless attitudes to food) on the other – mean that food produced goes uneaten. These problems contribute not only to food insecurity in all its forms but also to enormous environmental problems.
We agree. We emphasise that measures to sustainably intensify food production must be situated within a wider framework for action on food security. We need to see policy makers make concerted efforts to improve fairness and equity in the food system, to reduce food losses and waste and to moderate the growing demand for resource intensive foods such as meat and dairy products.
Nevertheless, we maintain that some more food will still be needed. With an anticipated population of 9-10 billion on the planet by 2050 it is simply too risky to assume that any one set of approaches will suffice. Inertia, time lags and ineptitudes in the policy making process make it inevitable that supply will need to increase. This doesn’t mean that we need to increase food by a certain specified amount, nor that more food needs to be produced everywhere: indeed in some areas the need to improve sustainability means that yield reductions will be needed.
Emad MAHGOUB