The legend of land sparing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24228340 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ambra Calo (0000-0003-4219-6614), Olivia Oldham (0000-0003-2429-7040), Philip Loring (0000-0001-6039-2331), M Jahi Johnson‐chappell (0000-0001-8542-1610) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-29 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Agriculture and Human Values (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0889-048X • E-ISSN: 1572-8366 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10460-026-10985-4 |
| OpenAlex | W7214767191 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 73 |
As institutions mobilize ambitious land-use transition agendas, dominant policy narratives risk constraining their transformative potential. The land sparing–land sharing (SpSh) framework, introduced in the early 2000s, offered a compelling heuristic by positing two mutually exclusive strategies: intensifying production to “spare” land for nature, or integrating biodiversity within agricultural landscapes. While SpSh stimulated valuable empirical and theoretical work, its simplifying assumptions proved ill-suited to the complexity of land systems, leading many scholars to move beyond the debate. In this discussion, we ponder if a reductionist land sparing revival has gained traction among policy platforms, think tanks, and agribusiness actors. This rhetoric reframes sustainability as contingent on agricultural intensification, presenting yield maximization as a proxy for ecological and social progress. To understand this potential resurgence, we first trace the genealogy of SpSh, unpacking the discursive strategies that construct its legitimacy. Then, we showcase how strident contemporary land sparing rhetoric is expressed across prominent think tank publications, environmental policy positions, agribusiness communications, and academic literature. Drawing on science and technology studies, we ask if land sparing has become a “policy legend”: a socio-technical imaginary that mobilizes actors around a technocratic vision of land use, despite empirical critiques and viable alternatives. Our discussion explores how a folktale version of land sparing would narrow the parameters of food system transformation, legitimizing land concentration and reinforcing industrial paradigms under the guise of sustainability. We conclude with a warning: if indeed a simplified land sparing is resurging in its discursive power, more plural and just pathways for land governance will become foreclosed.
Agribusiness · agricultural intensification · Biodiversity conservation · food system transformation · land concentration · land governance · land sharing · land sparing · land use transition · policy narratives · sociotechnical imaginaries · sustainability discourse · Think tanks · yield optimization · Agricultural Economics and Policy · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Land Use and Ecosystem Services
The Spirit of the Soil
Nature's Matrix
Land Sparing Versus Land Sharing
Global food security, biodiversity conservation and the future of agricultural intensification
Agricultural intensification and changes in cultivated areas, 1970–2005
People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years
Reframing the land‐sparing/land‐sharing debate for biodiversity conservation
The agroecological matrix as alternative to the land-sparing/agriculture intensification model
Putting meaning back into “sustainable intensification”
Policies for reduced deforestation and their impact on agricultural production
Do increases in agricultural yield spare land for nature?
Farming and the Fate of Wild Nature
Putting people in the map
Reconciling Food Production and Biodiversity Conservation
Interrogating the Treadmill of Production
Agricultural intensification and land use change
The driving forces of landscape change in Europe
Agricultural intensification, Indigenous stewardship and land sparing in tropical dry forests
The environmental costs and benefits of high-yield farming
Globalization of land use
From elite folk science to the policy legend of the circular economy
Environmental governance through metrics
Ever Since Hightower
Food security and biodiversity
The agrarian question of climate change
Land Sparing and Land Sharing Policies in Developing Countries – Drivers and Linkages to Scientific Debates
Governing by models
The land sparing – land sharing controversy
Deliberative-analytic approaches to Ecosystem Services as a way forward for the land sparing/sharing debate
Land sparing and land sharing in spatial planning
A vernacular for living systems
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
Viable Reserve Networks Arise From Individual Landholder Responses To Conservation Incentives
Middle-range theories of land system change
More is more
What are Improved Seeds? An Epistemology of the Green Revolution
Behind the Myth
Uncomfortable knowledge
Practices of assemblage and community forest management
Anticipatory ruination
Commons, co-ops, and corporations
| Highly cited | No |
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