Pollution from nutrients and pesticides, degradation of soils and loss of habitats and biodiversity are a function of developments in agricultural science, as well as of farmers’ management decisions (see G. Schmidt-Traub et al. Nature 569, 181–183; 2019).

Farming practices have been transformed over the past half-century by specialization and simplification (for instance, the division of livestock and cash-crop farming) and by agrotechnologies such as biotechnology, robotics and remote sensing. However, there has been no parallel development of farming-systems science to integrate the short- and long-term economic, environmental and social effects of these innovative technologies at local scales. In Germany, for example, most technical advice for farmers is provided by representatives of the agricultural supply chain, who can neither evaluate their recommendations in a whole-farm context, nor assess the rebound effects on the biosphere.

The world’s broken food system needs innovations in farming-systems science — for example, in the ecology of crop and livestock farming, in the biogeochemistry of land use and in the ethics of livestock husbandry and rural sociology. The benefits of new practices need to be realized without adverse environmental consequences.