Abstract

Agricultural simplification continues to expand at the expense of more diverse forms of agriculture. This simplification, for example, in the form of intensively managed monocultures, poses a risk to keeping the world within safe and just Earth system boundaries. Here, we estimated how agricultural diversification simultaneously affects social and environmental outcomes. Drawing from 24 studies in 11 countries across 2655 farms, we show how five diversification strategies focusing on livestock, crops, soils, noncrop plantings, and water conservation benefit social (e.g., human well-being, yields, and food security) and environmental (e.g., biodiversity, ecosystem services, and reduced environmental externalities) outcomes. We found that applying multiple diversification strategies creates more positive outcomes than individual management strategies alone. To realize these benefits, well-designed policies are needed to incentivize the adoption of multiple diversification strategies in unison.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-2024

Notes/Citation Information

Copyright © 2024 the authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original US government works. https://www.science.org/ about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adj1914

Funding Information 

This work was supported by the National Socio- Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation (grant DBI-1639145 to Z.M. and C.K.) and by the UBC Research Excellence Cluster for Diversified Agroecosystems. L.V.R. was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant 853222 FORESTDIET). I.G. was partially funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG project number 532858005 GR 4844/4-1). C.L. was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant 796451 FFSize). J.B., A.J., L.H., and R.L. were funded by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation. P.B. was funded by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NKFIH KKP 133839). M.E.I. was funded by the Canada Research Chairs program. S.R. and I.S.D. were funded by the European Union (FP7 311781). C.K. and D.K. were funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA NIFA project 2015- 67019- 23147/1005662) and the CS Fund. R.B.K., C.B.K., C.V., and I.S.D. were funded through the 2017-2018 Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivScen ERA-NetCOFUND program, and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC grant 523660-2018), National Science Foundation (NSF grant 1852587), German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF grant 01LC11804A), and the Research Council of Norway (grant 295442). C.M.K. and O.M.S. were funded by USDA-NIFA-OREI grant 2015-51300-24155 and C.M.K. through the USDA-NIFA-AFRI grant 12679452- 2019-67012-29720. D.J.L., A.M., and H.P. were funded by The World Bank project Colombia Mainstreaming Sustainable Cattle Ranching (CMSCR-P104687), FEDEGAN, CIPAV, TNC, and Action Fund, with financial support from the Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy of the United Kingdom (BEIS) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Data collection in Indonesia was funded by DFG project 192626868 in the framework of the collaborative German– Indonesian research center CRC990. C.S. was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under agreement 727284 and was partially funded by the DFG under Germany’s Excellence Strategy (EXC 2070–390732324). Z.M. and M.H. and the ECOLIMITS project were funded through the UK NERC-DFID-ESRC Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) program (grant NE/K010379-1) and NERC (grants NE/P001092/1 and NE/P00394X/1). Z.M. was also funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant BB/J014427/1) and a Royal Geographic Society postgraduate fieldwork award.

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