While we often look for high-tech solutions to fix our food systems, the authors explain that returning to ecological principles might be the most reliable way to keep agriculture within a “safe operating space” for humanity.
By applying a new type of analysis to data from 30 long-term experiments across Europe and Africa, the researchers investigated how different ecological intensification practices interact with each other, as well as with nitrogen fertilizer and tillage. They confirm that specific methods—such as increasing crop diversity and adding organic matter or fertility-building crops—generally lead to higher yields for staple foods.
However, the study reveals an important trade-off: these ecological practices have a largely substitutive relationship with nitrogen fertilizer. This means that while they significantly increase yields when fertilizer doses are low, they have minimal or no effect when high amounts of fertilizer are already being used.
The authors also point out that these ecological methods perform consistently across various levels of tillage, and they found that reducing tillage did not strongly impact overall yields. Ultimately, the researchers suggest that focusing on these ecological strategies offers a proven pathway toward more sustainable and resilient farming.
Learn more about this study here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00911-x
Reference:
MacLaren, C., Mead, A., Van Balen, D., Claessens, L., Etana, A., De Haan, J., Haagsma, W., Jäck, O., Keller, T., Labuschagne, J., Myrbeck, Å., Necpalova, M., Nziguheba, G., Six, J., Strauss, J., Swanepoel, P. A., Thierfelder, C., Topp, C., Tshuma, F., … Storkey, J. (2022). Long-term evidence for ecological intensification as a pathway to sustainable agriculture. Nature Sustainability, 5(9), 770–779.