There is broad global consensus that our interactions with nature are unsustainable and need to change. Agriculture is a case in point. There is widespread agreement that dominant modes of agriculture are unsustainable, but equally widespread disagreement about how sustainability should be achieved or what sustainable agriculture entails. 

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To exemplify what some of these disagreements might look like in research, we analyse two highly influential fields of contemporary research on agriculture sustainability underpinned by different assumptions: agroecology (AE) and sustainable intensification (SI).

AE and SI differ in their assumptions about what counts as relevant and valid knowledge facilitating agricultural sustainability, that is, in their epistemology. This is reflected in the choice of theory and method, and their view on what counts as evidence.

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AE clearly lacks a discussion about productivity, making it impossible to establish whether enough food can be produced in the proposed diversified farming systems. SI takes the issue of how to balance food production and environmental impact seriously…

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So how can we make…academic leaders broaden their horizons about the role of science for sustainable transformations? 

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