Ecological Intensification: Bridging the Gap between Science and Practice

Abstract

There is worldwide concern about the environmental costs of conventional intensification of agriculture. Growing evidence suggests that ecological intensification of mainstream farming can safeguard food production, with accompanying environmental benefits; however, the approach is rarely adopted by farmers. Our review of the evidence for replacing external inputs with ecosystem services shows that scientists tend to focus on processes (e.g., pollination) rather than outcomes (e.g., profits), and express benefits at spatio-temporal scales that are not always relevant to farmers. This results in mismatches in perceived benefits of ecological intensification between scientists and farmers, which hinders its uptake. We provide recommendations for overcoming these mismatches and highlight important additional factors driving uptake of nature based management practices, such as social acceptability of farming.

Published in

Trends in ecology & evolution
2019, Volume: 34, number: 2, pages: 154-166 Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON

SLU Authors

• Bommarco, Riccardo

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG2 Zero hunger
SDG12 Responsible consumption and production


UKÄ Subject classification

Agricultural Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2018.11.002

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/98437