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New Sustainable Intensification Database Launches

Farming First Farming First

An essential guide to Sustainable Intensification, the practical pathway towards producing more food with less impact on the environment, whilst improving livelihoods and wellbeing is launched today by Farming First supporter Agriculture for Impact.

Sustainable Intensification must become a new paradigm for African agriculture to capture the dual purpose of intensifying food production while ensuring the natural resource base on which agriculture depends is sustained, and indeed improved, for future generations,” comments Sir Gordon Conway, Director of Agriculture for Impact.

The database is broken into three categories of approaches:

  1. Ecological: environmentally sustainable approaches such as intercropping, integrated pest management and precision farming;
  2. Genetic: conventional and modern breeding methods for crops and livestock; and
  3. Socio-economic: creating an enabling environment for farmers to access training, finance, inputs and functioning markets.

Screen Shot 2015-07-30 at 10.26.57Within each category or pillar three selected methods or technologies, with 27 sub-sets and accompanying case studies, illustrate the pros and cons of each method. An accompanying infographic also illustrates the approaches at work.

The Sustainable Intensification database builds on extensive work by Agriculture for Impact on this approach, in particular in its role as convenor of the Montpellier Panel of experts, which published the influential report “Sustainable Intensification: A New Paradigm for African Agriculture” in 2013. This flagship report was responsible for updating and redefining the concept of Sustainable Intensification, and bringing it onto the global policy agenda for food security in the developing world.

To access the database visit: www.ag4impact.org/database

Featured image photo credit: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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