Agriculture is one of the most significant drivers of global land-use change (Tilman et al. 2011), with around 40% of all ice-free land on earth now being used for food production (Ellis et al. 2010). The intensification of agriculture is one of the most widespread policy options being pursued to improve food security and human development, and typically involves increased use of mechanization, fertilizers, and pesticides to increase agricultural productivity (Dawson et al. 2019). Although such approaches have successfully been used to boost food production in many parts of the world, the negative environmental impacts of intensive farming are well established and include widespread biodiversity loss; emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and ammonia; soil compaction, depletion, and erosion; eutrophication; dispersal of toxic herbicides and pesticides; and depletion of freshwater (McLaughlin and Mineau 1995; Green et al. 2005; Balmford et al. 2018). It is likely that these impacts will increase globally in the coming decades owing to projected increases in food demand owing to human population growth and dietary shifts towards increasing meat consumption (Clark and Tilman 2017). Agricultural intensification can therefore be considered inconsistent with the sustainable use of land, and will likely undermine the achievement of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) (Dudley and Alexander 2017; Dawson et al. 2019).
