To what extent can farmers spare or share land to meet food demand and reduce agriculture’s environmental pressures?

Balancing agricultural production with environmental preservation remains a key challenge for the agricultural sector. This study evaluates two contrasting land management strategies: land sparing, which aims to limit the expansion of cultivated land, and land sharing, which seeks to reduce the intensity of agricultural input use to lessen environmental impacts from agriculture. The paper contributes by linking ecological land-use strategies with efficiency analysis through a farm activity model, redefining efficiency according to the specific goals of each strategy: in the land sparing strategy, the efficiency measure evaluates the potential to reduce land while maintaining the production levels, whereas in the land sharing strategy, this measure involves reducing the intensity of harmful input use without compromising output. Using farm-level data from the Meuse department (2006–2016), we assess the feasibility of these strategies at both a global and district scale. Results show that environmental sustainability can be improved by either setting aside 17% of farmland for conservation (land sparing) or reducing harmful input use intensity by 12% at a constant output level and by 7% while increasing output (land sharing). Recognising the risks farmers face in adopting these strategies, we propose a risk-mitigation mechanism in the form of land sparing/sharing insurance, coordinated at the district level. Our findings underscore the importance of regionally tailored policies over uniform benchmarks to effectively support environmentally friendly farming practices.