Feed: a food systems podcast Agroecology and Sustainable Intensification: the values beneath the science
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Jan 22, 2026 Helena Rocklindsberg, an animal ethics scholar exploring values in agriculture, and Riccardo Bommarco, an ecologist and agronomist focused on agroecology and sustainable intensification, debate how different values shape science. They compare yield-driven, tech-heavy approaches with diversity-focused, smallholder perspectives. They map contrasting concepts, blind spots, scale tensions, and ways the two approaches might learn from each other.
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Different Problem Framings Shape Solutions
- Agroecology and sustainable intensification start from the same claim that agriculture is unsustainable but define the problems differently.
- Different problem framings drive divergent solutions, scales, and priorities.
Yield Versus Diversity As Core Priorities
- Sustainable intensification prioritizes yield and technological efficiency at large scale.
- Agroecology emphasizes small-scale diversity and social-environmental sustainability over yield alone.
Clusters Reveal Siloed Literatures
- Concept mapping shows two idea clusters that barely overlap: diversity/systems versus yield/efficiency.
- The weak overlap reveals why literatures rarely engage and why policy channels remain siloed.