Plant Production and Protection Division: Sustainable Crop Production Intensification

What is Sustainable Crop Production Intensification?

The need to feed a growing population is a constant pressure on crop production, as is coping with an increasingly degraded environment and uncertainties resulting from climate change - and the need to adapt farming systems to these. Sustainable crop production intensification provides opportunities for optimizing crop production per unit area, taking into consideration the range of sustainability aspects including potential and/or real social, political, economic and environmental impacts. Recent trends would indicate that the incorporation of scientific principles of ecosystem management into farming practices can enhance crop production (yield). With a particular focus on environmental sustainability through an ecosystem approach, sustainable crop production intensification aims to maximize options for crop production intensification through the management of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Sustainable crop production intensification responds to the need to increase the opportunities for crop production to address the current and future environmental threats the world is facing, and ultimately respond to the need to increase food production for the forecasted increase in human population.Hence,an important aspect of SCPI is that it looks to manage biological processes sustainably to optimize crop production.

AGP promotes crop production intensification using the ecosystem approach, including technical and policy considerations in four key dimensions:
a) increasing agricultural productivity; b) enhancing sustainable crop production; c) managing biodiversity and ecosystem services; and d) strengthening livelihoods.

Core Themes