School of Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, U.K.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2017 May;92(2):716-738. doi: 10.1111/brv.12251. Epub 2016 Feb 5.
Given the pressures on land to produce ever more food, doing it 'sustainably' is growing in importance. However, 'sustainable agriculture' is complex to define, not least because agriculture impacts in many different ways and it is not clear how different aspects of sustainability may be in synergy or trade off against each other. We conducted a meta-analysis to assess the relationships between multiple measures of sustainability using novel analytical methods, based around defining the efficiency frontier in the relationship between variables, as well as using correlation analysis. We define 20 grouped variables of agriculture's impact (e.g. on soil, greenhouse gas, water, biodiversity) and find evidence of both strong positive and negative correlations between them. Analysis based on the efficiency frontier suggests that trade-offs can be 'softened' by exploiting the natural between-study variation that arises from a combination of farming best practice and context. Nonetheless, the literature provides strong evidence of the relationship between yields and the negative externalities created by farming across a range of measures.
鉴于在土地上生产更多食物的压力越来越大，可持续地生产食物变得越来越重要。然而，可持续农业的定义很复杂，尤其是因为农业以多种不同的方式产生影响，而且尚不清楚可持续性的不同方面如何协同增效，或者相互权衡取舍。我们使用基于变量关系定义效率前沿的新分析方法进行了荟萃分析，以评估多种可持续性衡量指标之间的关系，同时还使用了相关分析。我们定义了 20 组农业影响变量（例如对土壤、温室气体、水、生物多样性的影响），并发现它们之间存在强烈的正相关和负相关关系。基于效率前沿的分析表明，可以通过利用由于最佳农业实践和背景的组合而产生的研究间自然差异来“减轻”权衡取舍。尽管如此，该文献还是为产量与农业在一系列措施中产生的负面外部性之间的关系提供了有力的证据。
