Sustainable intensification: Unravelling the rhetoric

The Summer issue of Food Ethics magazine asks: what does ‘sustainable intensification’ mean? Is it the silver bullet that will deliver green and fair farming and food systems, or is it business as usual with a green halo?

Our expert contributors debate these issues and more, unravelling the rhetoric, assumptions and differing viewpoints and values that lie behind the language.

The debate is timely. DEFRA’s Green Food Project, which looks at what sustainable intensification means for food and farming in the UK, was published on 10th July this year.

It’s clear that a focus on food production alone isn’t enough. What we’re eating, how much we waste and how we feed people fairly and treat animals humanely all need to be part of the picture. Business as usual – even with green edges – is not the answer. There is an urgent need to transform our food system to meet the challenges ahead. How we do that, and what part sustainable intensification can play, is still up for debate.

Contributors include Professor Sir John Beddington (Government Chief Scientific adviser), Tim Benton (UK Champion for global food security), Abi Bunker (Head of Agriculture team RSPB), Mike Bushell (Syngenta), Tara Garnett of the Food Climate Research Network, Charles Godfray of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, Vicki Hird (Friends of the Earth), Jeanette Longfield (Sustain), Andrew Opie (British Retail Consortium) and Jonathon Porritt (Founder director of Forum for the Future).

To download the magazine, please click on the file below.