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Demand is exogenous and will increase as population size and wealth increase.
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Given health externalities, as well as environmental ones, past patterns are not a strong guide to future demand. Diets can change rapidly (e.g. as a consequence of nutrition transitions or the COVID-19 pandemic).
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Growing market demand requires productivity growth to raise supply.
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Market failure can be corrected by structural change to deliver better public goods, reducing aggregate demand.
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Dietary change is difficult and is not the preserve of policy.
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Given the right levers, diets can change rapidly. Diets (like tobacco and alcohol use) should be shaped by social needs.
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The potential for technologically led sustainable intensification is substantial.
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Technically this may be true, but operationally it may create trade-offs (e.g. greater yields may require absolute increases in inputs, even if they are relatively more efficient). More focus should be given to ‘what is grown’ than to ‘how more can be grown’.
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Land sparing is enabled by sustainable intensification.
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Intensification is more likely to enable land clearance than land sparing, through spillover effects.
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Source: Chatham House research.
Assumption 1: Demand is exogenous to supply and will necessarily increase
Framing: Global food demand is typically projected on the basis of past demand growth (or today’s price elasticities) decomposed into a function of income and population size, with the assumption that existing relationships can be projected forwards. Given that, globally, both economic growth and population growth are projected to increase, this gives rise to the underlying assumption that demand for food will grow, as the poor get richer and demand more – in particular, more meat and dairy. Thus, demand growth is set externally to food systems, being ‘locked in’ by population and economic growth. Of the two, some analyses identify the contribution of per person wealth-related economic growth as having a bigger overall impact on demand than population growth.
Critique: First, increasing recognition of the effects of excessive consumption on human health and well-being, and planetary health, may alter behavioural, regulatory or market incentives, and change purchasing patterns (in particular, decreasing consumption of ultra-processed food and livestock products, and increasing fruit and vegetable intake). Similarly, changes in food availability and price (e.g. driven by environmental, geopolitical or geo-economic change) may shift consumer demand and reshape consumption patterns (see Version 2, Assumption 1). Hence, given that some of the factors shaping demand are not static, it may not be robust to assume that past consumption is a necessary determinant of future consumption.
Second, demand is not exogenous to the system or supply: it is influenced by market dynamics. In the 19th century, the economist W. S. Jevons pointed out that efficiency gains can reduce prices which, if passed onto the consumer, can lead to demand growth through stimulating consumption. This leads to a ‘paradox of productivity’ – the greater the focus on innovation in agriculture, the more stimulation is given to demand growth. In addition, capitalism is underpinned by economic incentives to increase consumption, and is thus inherently market-expanding. Therefore, assuming demand will only grow according to wealth and population size probably underestimates the scope for demand growth. Hence, intensifying agricultural production to meet demand, in order to spare land, has the potential to under-deliver in that respect. Any increase in incentives for land conversion may undermine future regulatory or voluntary actions to protect spared land.
The assumption that demand is predictable and fixed, and can therefore be met by intensifying production to allow land to be spared from agricultural expansion, is therefore a weak assumption (see also critique to Version 1, Assumption 5, below). Demand is not a ‘given’ – it is an endogenous variable that can be changed, whether positively or negatively.
Assumption 2: Growing market demand requires productivity growth
Framing: It is central to current economic thinking that markets are the best mechanism for increasing prosperity and that suppliers should be enabled to meet demand in ways that are most efficient and productive, without interventions or regulation (often referred to as ‘red tape’) that may constrain supply, and thus price. The free-market view is that if demand exists (or can be created), profit can be made from supplying that demand. Changing the structure of the market to constrain demand or supply reduces potential economic growth, and is therefore to be avoided.
Further, it is often implicitly assumed that farmers would not farm in ways that are not economically sustainable, and therefore environmental regulation is an unnecessary form of red tape which increases the costs of production. Similarly, many free marketeers, as well as many politicians, would suggest that if people want to consume goods that are bad for their dietary health or that increase greenhouse gas emissions or biodiversity losses, they should be entitled to, and the market should not be specifically structured around regulation for reasons related to public goods. Regulation is seen to impinge directly on the economic public goods that arise from reducing prices, increasing choices and allowing different forms of consumption that contribute to economic growth.
Thus, competitive markets drive innovation, leading to increasing efficiency and lower prices. As declared by the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service:
This view is very deeply entrenched. Agriculture is often framed as an economic sector, and farmers as market actors, with the role of contributing to meeting demand (often erroneously characterized as ‘feeding the world’) by growing more food. This framing leads to a discourse that it is the ‘moral duty’ of farmers to contribute to maximizing on-farm productivity growth, and that adoption of new technologies is often the best route. This view is sometimes extended to imply that if on-farm productivity is not maximized via new technologies, farms become inefficient and wasteful, and their farmers should make way for productivity-focused agriculturalists who can maximize a nation’s comparative advantage and thus contribute to maximizing its economic growth. Farmers who do not meet such expectations may therefore be subject to forms of peer pressure.
Such a discourse on maximizing productivity mainly through new technologies is articulated across the world. For example, in the case of England, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) stated in its 2018 white paper Health and Harmony: the future for food, farming and the environment in a Green Brexit:
The assumption that demand growth requires productivity growth entrenches the view that increasing scale and intensity of farms is a necessary, unidirectional component of agriculture: farms should get ever bigger, and ever more technologically developed, in order to maximize productivity, and small, inefficient farms should disappear. According to the summary of a 2016 workshop organized by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and Policy Department B of the European Parliament:
Given the strength of the assumption that demand needs to be met through productivity growth, it also follows that the most sustainable system is one which maximizes productivity in places with comparative advantage and avoids productivity in places with comparative disadvantage. Trade liberalization is therefore a key part of enabling efficient land use on a global basis.
Critique: Demand is influenced by price and by the market itself (e.g. through marketing – see critique of Assumption 1), and productivity growth can, through the ‘Jevons paradox’, increase demand, by reducing prices and increasing availability, and decrease the efficiency of the whole system by increasing its environmental and human costs. If productivity growth leads to greater per person availability beyond human metabolic limits, it will result in either ill health and/or food waste. Hence, while proponents of the market-led framing of Version 1 argue for productivity growth to ‘feed the world’ through meeting demand growth, such growth may instead contribute to more waste and excess food consumption for the majority of the global population. The notion that people should be entitled to eat food that has negative attributes (in terms of their health and/or environment) can be countered by research that suggests many people buy such foods not because of inherent preference, but because of affordability and accessibility. Many examples of social research suggest that if lower-impact foods were more affordable, people would prefer to consume them (see critique to Version 1, Assumption 3, below).
Furthermore, demand globally is met and enabled by increasingly significant international trade in commodities. While trade can optimize land use through maximizing comparative advantage, aspects of the comparative advantage can include weak environmental and social governance. Given the notion that demand should be met, privileging market needs over environmental and social protection can lead to a global ‘race to the bottom’, via the vicious circles of the Jevons paradox: more demand creates more economic value, which increases profits and market share, and as the volume produced increases, prices fall which in turn increases demand.
Assumption 3: Dietary change to reduce demand is ‘difficult’ and not the preserve of policy
Framing: A core tenet of neoliberal thinking is that markets allow individuals to meet their preferences, which in turn drive the behaviour of markets. Various studies have concluded that ‘nudges’ to change consumption behaviour may work, but only to a limited extent. This reinforces the view that existing consumption patterns are ‘revealed preferences’ (showing what consumers really want to consume) and that demand for food is relatively inelastic (i.e. consumption changes relatively little in response to marginal price changes). Given these assumptions, future demand will depend on the increased consumer purchasing power enabled by economic growth, more so than on changes in total population size or in consumer preferences. This implies a ‘locked-in’ assessment of demand, so that attempting to change consumption patterns is taken to be of marginal utility, compared with technological innovation on the supply side, in making food systems more sustainable.
From a political perspective, the argument that the state should not be involved in shaping citizens’ consumption is often more forcefully expressed. For example, US Senator Michael Crapo has been quoted as saying: ‘It is not government’s job to mandate responsibility on our [citizens’] behalf. We have the intelligence and good sense to make wise consumption choices for ourselves and our children. It is up to us to do what is best for our health and our children’s health.’ In 2021, the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, George Eustice, was reported to have said that it is not the role of government to lecture consumers on changing their diets, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson rejected the National Food Strategy’s suggested interventions towards healthier diets: as was reported by the Daily Mail, ‘Boris Johnson slaps down his eating tsar’s ‘nanny state’ call’. This view is often entrenched in the libertarian right, where it is anathema for government to intervene to limit personal choices, even for the public good.
If the industrialization and intensification of agriculture undermine healthy consumption patterns, this weakens the proposition that further intensification could be the main part of the solution to how to feed people healthily.
Critique: The first critique of the ‘diets are difficult to change’ argument is that diets are continually changing – as evidenced by the global nutrition transition, there have been ‘major shifts in diet […] toward[s] increased refined carbohydrates, added sweeteners, edible oils, and animal-source foods and reduced legumes, other vegetables, and fruits’ with the associated adverse health outcomes. There are multiple drivers for this, including income growth, but a recent review concludes that ‘[t]hese developments are closely linked with the industrialization of food systems, technological change and globalization, including growth in the market and political activities of transnational food corporations and inadequate policies to protect nutrition in these new contexts’. If it is the case that the industrialization and intensification of agriculture undermine healthy consumption patterns, this weakens the proposition that further intensification could be the main part of the solution to how to feed people healthily. In this case, the economic benefits of increasing the availability of food and reducing prices trade off against the economic costs of worsening public health.
The second critique of the ‘diets are difficult to change’ argument revolves around whether demand reflects people’s preferences. In Version 1’s narrative, purchasing patterns are often taken as ‘revealed preferences’ of consumption patterns. In other words, what consumers buy shows their real, rather than stated, values or attitudes. However, there has been a significant amount of research indicating that consumers often hold much more nuanced attitudes to food, and their purchasing patterns do not necessarily capture their values and beliefs as citizens or family members (contrasting Version 1’s view of ‘people as consumers’ with Version 2’s ‘people as citizens’, as discussed in a 2017 study).
In the UK, several reports reveal commonly held attitudes to food. Most indicate a low public awareness of food-related issues. However, once informed, people tend to say they have increased willingness to change their consumption behaviour, and/or seek reassurances that industry and government are working to reduce risks. The 2013 Which? report The future of food – giving consumers a say shows that many citizen jury participants began ‘thinking more about where their food has come from and how it has been produced, considering changing the balance of what they eat (e.g. less meat or dairy or more fruit when it is in season) and reducing how much food they waste’. A 2016 report from the UK Food Standards Agency indicated that ‘[p]articipants were surprised and concerned to realize they knew so little about the complex global food system. There was a strong desire to know more about the processes that bring food to our tables’. It went on: ‘Participants […] hoped that the food industry would play a critical role in consumer education, raising awareness of global challenges and empowering consumers to make better decisions about food.’
In terms of food policy, citizens and consumers have a range of concerns about social goods – from provenance and the environmental and air quality impacts of production, to nutrition and price. People place significant trust in regulation and food governance, and have an implicit expectation that their best interests are being properly managed and that the production of food in unsustainable ways – or in ways that are detrimental to health – is not promoted through policy and the market. This body of work suggests that there is scope for consumers to modify purchasing based on wider concerns, but that they are currently constrained in doing so by a lack of transparency, habit, and/or the wider food environment affecting choice and convenience of purchasing. Research indicates that consumers are likely to support government policy interventions that pursue a fairer or more sustainable food system if such changes are transparent and if the relevant debates are led by government. Given that price, and Pigouvian taxes, are used to shape a wide range of consumer purchasing decisions (e.g. on alcohol, sugar-sweetened beverages, tobacco and fuel), the potential of shaping food consumption through price change is a subject of current debate. Furthermore, there are many potential levers for influencing food purchasing behaviours from a government perspective, creating structural change in markets. Table 5.6 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s special report on ‘Climate Change and Land’ (2019) lists about 20 families of policy: from agricultural subsidies and research (to alter the availability of foodstuffs) through changing the food environment (e.g. ‘nudges’ over placement of goods in store), education and awareness, public procurement, direct transfers of money or food stamps, and planning law (e.g. the placement of fast food outlets). (See also Version 2, Assumption 5.)
Social attitudes have a complex set of determinants, and are themselves subject to non-linear change. Indeed, given certain circumstances, attitudinal and behavioural change can be rapid and significant.
The third critique is that social attitudes have a complex set of determinants, and are themselves subject to non-linear change. Indeed, given certain circumstances, attitudinal and behavioural change can be rapid and significant (as shown during the COVID-19 pandemic). Hence, the perception that, in the recent past, behaviour change has been ‘difficult’ does not mean that will always be the case. It is possible to imagine plausible combinations of circumstances where social norms change rapidly, opening up the space for rapid change in consumption behaviour. For example, two fires in London’s transport network, the first at Oxford Circus station in 1984 and the second, which claimed 31 lives, at King’s Cross in 1987, created the political space to start implementing smoking bans in public – initially within the London Underground, then on rail services, then on the bus network – thus accelerating changes in social norms that allowed further bans to be brought in. As significant exposure to climate hazards (extreme weather events, wildfires, emerging diseases, disruption to supply chains and mounting economic costs) makes climate change more tangible to all, this may drive greater consumer-, investor-led or political pressure to find solutions.
Assumption 4: The potential for technology-led ‘sustainable’ intensification is substantial
Framing: The Version 1 argument suggests that if primacy is given to the market, meeting growing demand and avoiding widespread price increases, it is necessary to innovate to raise supply. As highlighted by Mario Giampietro, the neoclassical economic position is that ‘any limiting production factor can be substituted by technological innovation’. Since it is assumed that demand will continue to grow, and given the finite availability of land, this growing demand can only be met through innovation. The predominant frame in international discourse is that investment in agricultural research is key to productivity growth, as was highlighted at COP26 with the launch of the Glasgow Breakthrough Agenda, mobilizing significant money for productivity-enhancing ‘sustainable’ technologies, including in agriculture. This approach builds on innovation campaigns of the past, including that which gave rise to the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960s. Yields have increased markedly through technological innovation over the past decades, and many argue that there is significant further potential in this respect. For example, analysis of the potential to capture incident radiation indicates a theoretical potential yield for wheat in the UK of 20 tonnes per hectare, compared to the five-year average in 2016–20 of about 8.4 tonnes per hectare.
Critique: First, it is uncertain to what extent intensification can realize productivity gains without an absolute additional environmental impact (to take one example, higher-yielding crops require more nitrogen input, all things being equal, and nitrogen pollution is an issue of increasing environmental concern). It is possible to increase the relative efficiency (in terms of decreasing the environmental impact per kg yielded), but if the yield increases enough, then the absolute impact also increases. Intensification typically leads to a variety of scale-dependent spillover effects (due to pollution and landscape homogenization arising from monocultural production). This means that there is no simple linear relationship between environmental impact and the intensity of production: instead, a range of key local thresholds may be encountered, beyond which environmental impacts accelerate. Thus, while intensification is certainly feasible, the degree to which environmental impacts decline absolutely (compared to relatively), and thus the extent to which intensification is truly sustainable at scale, remain debatable.
Second, the technologies required to produce elevated yields are often socially contested – whether these are advanced biotechnological approaches such as gene editing, or wider genetic modification, or impacts on animal welfare (e.g. through increased confinement), or aspects of precision agriculture that have implications for rural labour, data provision and ownership, or unequal access to capital investment. So, technological innovation is a necessary but insufficient step towards scaling that technology into widespread use. What is increasingly recognized is that the technology forms a small part of ‘bundles’ of social, political and financial innovation that are necessary to take an invention into widespread use, and to navigate the inevitable trade-offs between different dimensions of impact (economic, environmental and social). Furthermore, recent literature emphasizes a lack of ‘silver bullet’ solutions in this area.
The sustainable intensification literature further emphasizes a number of key points. First, it is claimed that sustainability and intensification should be given equal weighting, whereas operationally they rarely are. The second common assertion is that sustainable intensification applies to the whole system (growing more, sustainably) and that, in some places, de-intensification will be necessary to reduce current environmental impacts. Yet, in practice the discourse more normally centres on raising yields and increasing environmental efficiency, and not on reducing yields and gaining environmental goods. Third, sustainable intensification has three key steps: efficiency gains, a greater substitution of agroecological for synthetic processes, and system redesign for sustainability. Yet the prime focus to date has been on efficiency gains for more profitable agriculture.
Assumption 5: Land sparing is enabled by sustainable intensification
Framing: There is a significant empirical literature that underpins the ‘land sparing’ approach: that both biodiversity/environmental goods and agricultural production are maximized by separating land for nature from land for agriculture. This separation allows the intensification of agriculture on a smaller area than would be the case if land was shared between food production and nature. The ‘land sparing + (sustainable intensification)’ model is taken to justify the framing that, by (sustainably) intensifying, the pressure on land will be reduced, and land will (inevitably) be spared.
Critique: While there is a very large literature and evidence base on how sustainable intensification can occur across the scale, from field to farm and to landscape, there is a relative dearth of examples of where intensification has enabled or will enable land sparing, and the degree to which this is regulated and strategic, or is determined by market dynamics. Thus, while the logic of the case is sound and the argument for land sparing is analytically elegant, the evidence of sustainable intensification combined with land sparing on the ground remains weak, because of the need for the governance ‘quid pro quo’ of protecting land from agricultural expansion while intensifying non-spared land. This situation is exacerbated by the spillover effects of bioenvironmental processes and through the economics of profitability. In the former case, spillovers can occur between intensively farmed land and spared land through, for example, pollution, land fragmentation and microclimatic change, all of which have indirect effects on biodiversity. In terms of profitability, as systems intensify, profits increase and provide an economic incentive to further expand land at the frontier of land conversion (for example, in low-income countries in the tropics). Thus, for sustainable intensification combined with land sparing to be a viable strategy, simultaneous strategies are required, both for the governance and protection of the spared land and for a process of intensification which has minimal environmental impact on the agricultural land. Given the economic incentives for productivity growth, ‘sustainable’ intensification has, in many circles, become a synonym primarily for increasing efficiency to favour income. Hence, a sole focus (by government or in agriculture) on increasing the efficiency of production is insufficient to deliver land sparing. As was recommended by one 2014 study, the ‘intellectual value’ of the ‘land sparing vs land sharing’ framework should be recognized, ‘[…] but also its limitations with respect to real-world application’.
Version 1: The ideological underpinnings
Version 1 of sustainable agriculture, in arguing that the future of agriculture will be necessarily based on sustainable intensification and land sparing, makes, implicitly or explicitly, a number of key assumptions. Many of the assumptions rest to a greater extent on ideology than on academic evidence. For example, they give primacy to the notion that consumer demand drives supply to fulfil those demands, a framing that views consumption as revealed preference, which is difficult to change and remains the preserve of the individual consumer. This version does not recognize that existing patterns of consumption are themselves very much the product of decades of deliberative policies interacting with market drivers, shaping individuals’ ‘food environments’, and of a neoliberal, technocratic assumption that investment in technological development will solve the issues (which often permeates both the public and private sectors). Collectively, these can be characterized as, ‘If only we let them, markets will solve the problems, and people should be unconstrained in their consumption choices.’ While socially led concerns about food regulation – and particularly about the adoption of new approaches, such as genetic modification – are often rejected by politicians and industry as ‘being ideological’, there is little recognition that giving a market-led framing to the space for solutions to make agriculture more sustainable is itself ideological. Indeed, the Genetic Literacy Project, an agri-biotechnology lobby, labels itself as ‘science not ideology’ without acknowledging that the drivers for the deployment of the technologies it promotes are very much based on an ideological stance.
