Sustainability versus Intensification? An analysis of values towards UK food production

A number of high profile policy documents have emphasised the need to increase food production under projected land scarcity. Sustainable intensification is a proposed solution to this challenge, which is a technology-led pathway for development. Definitions of sustainable intensification have changed over time. However the implicit assumption that intensification, a productivist term, can be reconciled with sustainability has affected its acceptability for a number of audiences. The purpose of this paper is to examine responses to the terms sustainability and intensification in terms to their roles for attaining food security. A web-based experiment was conducted with members of the agri- food supply chain, the general public, scientists and policy makers in the UK. The experiment was structured to elicit values pertaining to sustainability and intensification and the level of favourability or ambivalence individuals feel towards these terms. A multi-level logistic regression was then used to estimate the relationship between values and an individual’s ambivalence towards sustainable intensification. Whilst the majority of respondents accept sustainability as essential to a solution for global food security, individuals are more conflicted towards intensification. This is related to opposing sets of values which these terms raise and also feelings of incongruence towards the juxtaposition of sustainability and intensification. Favoured messages tends to revolve around solutions based on behavioural change and restructuring of the food chain, rather than productivist based solutions, such as sustainable intensification itself.