A systematic review on trade-off analysis in agriculture

Abstract

Abstract Achieving multiple sustainable development goals simultaneously demands managing agricultural resources for different objectives and actively considering how these objectives compete (trade-offs) or complement (synergies). Trade-off analyses (TOA) are therefore central for policy and decision-making to achieve sustainable agricultural landscapes. Yet, evidence on TOA assessments in agriculture remains scattered due to the wide scope of research disciplines and objectives for which TOA is applied. We conducted a systematic review on 119 peer-reviewed articles to identify how TOAs are implemented within the agricultural context and what associated knowledge gaps exist. Our results highlight limited use of objectives that capture environmental and socioeconomic services from agriculture. Likewise, TOAs that consider effects or impacts across multiple spatial scales are an exception. Overall, our assessment identified that current TOA frameworks rarely include stakeholders in the co-development of the study, disregard TOA recommendations’ uncertainty due to outcome variability and overlook risks associated with the TOA outcomes. Increased attention to these aspects is critical for conducting TOAs that guide agricultural landscapes towards sustainability.