How can agricultural production be reconciled with environmental preservation: ‘Land sparing’ versus ‘Landsharing’?

Balancing agricultural production with environmental preservation is a major challenge in the agricultural sector. We address this issue by evaluating two land management strategies: land sharing and land sparing. Using an efficiency analysis based on an activity model, we assess the potential for implementing these strategies across different farm categories, defined by land quality (yield index) and subsidy levels. Applied to farm data from the Meuse department (2006–2016), our results show that agricultural production can align with environmental preservation by either sparing 16% of farmland for the environment or reducing the use intensity of operational inputs by 13% across all farmlands. For farms with low land quality, land sparing would be more appropriate, whereas high land quality farms would benefit more from land sharing. Both land sharing and land sparing would better suit large farms with fewer subsidies; meaning that as farm size and subsidy levels increase, their contribution to these strategies diminishes. Our findings emphasize the need to consider farm characteristics in implementing agricultural land management strategies for environmental preservation.