A meta-analysis suggests that protecting biodiversity in agriculture requires combining biodiversity-friendly farming practices with protected areas. For decades, scientists have debated how agriculture can both feed a growing population and safeguard the natural world. Should farms adopt a “land sharing” approach, where crops and livestock coexist with thriving non-food species? Or is “land sparing” better, maximizing yields on farmland to free up other areas for conservation?
To explore this, Eva Augustiny and colleagues systematically reviewed 57 peer-reviewed studies. They found that neither strategy alone can effectively balance agricultural production with biodiversity conservation. Only 17 of the studies provided enough detail — measuring production, clearly defining biodiversity metrics, and specifying farming systems — to allow meaningful comparisons, totaling 27 comparisons.
More than half of these showed that context-specific combinations of both strategies performed best, according to a press release.
Many studies oversimplified their methods and measured biodiversity narrowly, such as focusing solely on forest birds. According to the authors, these findings challenge the long-standing debate between land sparing and land sharing, emphasizing the need for integrated, location-specific approaches rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.
