Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION

Benefits of intensive agricultural intercropping

The need for increased crop yields has led to growing interest and research in agricultural intensification, which has a myriad of environmental impacts. Intercropping can bring the benefits of intensification within a reasonable footprint.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Agricultural intensification, cereal yields and malnourishment as averaged across values for the countries of each economic group.

References

  1. Tilman, D. et al. Science 292, 281 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Foley, J. A. et al. Nature 478, 337–342 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Tilman, D., Balzer, C., Hill, J. & Befort, B. L. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108, 20260–20264 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Li, C. et al. Nat. Plants https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0680-9 (2020).

  5. Vandermeer, J. H. The Ecology of Agroecosystems (Bartlett and Jones, 2010).

  6. Brooker, R. W. et al. New Phytol. 206, 107–117 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Zhu, Y. et al. Nature 406, 718–722 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. S. Sela, H. M. et al. Agron. J. 108, 1726–1734 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Cui, Z. et al. Nature 555, 363–366 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Hartwig, N. L. & Ammon, H. U. Weed Sci. 50, 688–699 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Tilman.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tilman, D. Benefits of intensive agricultural intercropping. Nat. Plants 6, 604–605 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0677-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0677-4

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene