Supplementary Material

Table S1. List of the questions used to evaluate each paper and inform the cluster analysis.

General approach to the topic
Paper generally has a…
1. / political/institutional approach
2. / economic approach
3. / ecological approach
Conceptual basis and farming practices
Degree to which paper…
4. / focuses on production
5. / discusses arguments for producing more food
6. / discusses arguments against producing more food
7. / discusses arguments for (ecological) intensification
8. / discusses arguments against (ecological) intensification
9. / discusses arguments for sustainable intensification
10. / discusses arguments against sustainable intensification
11. / discusses arguments for an ecosystem service approach
12. / discusses arguments against an ecosystem service approach
13. / considers closing yield gaps a possibility
14. / considers adaptation and mitigation to climate change important
15. / discusses arguments for land sparing
16. / discusses arguments against land sparing
17. / discusses arguments for land sharing
18. / discusses arguments against land sharing
19. / discusses arguments for food sovereignty
20. / discusses arguments against food sovereignty
21. / discusses arguments for the value/importance of smallholder farms
22. / discusses arguments against the value/importance of smallholder farms
23. / considers rural livelihoods
24. / considers social-ecological interactions
25. / discusses arguments for conventional practices
26. / discusses arguments against conventional practices
27. / discusses arguments for genetically modified organisms
28. / discusses arguments against genetically modified organisms
29. / discusses arguments for agroecology or agroforestry
30. / discusses arguments against agroecology or agroforestry
31. / discusses arguments for other alternative or traditional practices or knowledge
32. / discusses arguments against other alternative or traditional practices or knowledge
33. / discusses arguments for intercropping or crop rotations
34. / discusses arguments against intercropping or crop rotations
35. / considers reduced or no-till agriculture a possibility
36. / considers edible wilderness (crop wild relatives, neglected and underutilised species or insects) for contributing to food security
37. / considers (urban, community or home) gardens important for sustainable food production
38. / recognises the importance of pollinators
Food security
Degree to which paper considers the following aspects / components of food security:
39. / Availability: sufficient physical supply of food production
40. / Accessibility: the ability of individuals or communities to access the physical supply of available food
41. / Adequacy: ecological sustainability and safety of produced food
42. / Acceptability: culturally suitable food produced in a way that does not compromise human rights or dignity
43. / Agency: the socio–political requirements and systems enabling food security
44. / Utilisation: how the available food is used
Measurement of biodiversity
Degree to which paper…
45. / measures or focuses on a single species or taxon
46. / measures or focuses on species richness or abundance
47. / measures or focuses on genes or genetic diversity
48. / measures or focuses on ecosystems
49. / distinguishes between planned and associated biodiversity
Social structures, government and policy
Degree to which paper…
50. / considers unequal distribution of food as part of food insecurity
51. / considers poverty as part of food insecurity
52. / considers (gender) inequity or injustice as part of food insecurity
53. / considers missing education or knowledge as part of food insecurity
54. / considers missing power as part of food insecurity and thus argues for empowerment
55. / suggests stakeholder involvement or community participation
56. / suggests further education, advanced training or research, especially from the Western world
57. / is generally convinced that policy is responsible and needs to change
Economic aspects and consumption patterns
Degree to which paper…
58. / discusses arguments for trade
59. / discusses arguments against trade
60. / considers import and export a problem
61. / considers land grabbing a problem
62. / considers Western consumption in general a problem
63. / considers meat or dairy product consumption a problem
64. / considers waste or inefficient food storage a problem
65. / considers energy, especially biofuel, a problem
Further aspects
Degree to which paper…
66. / considers cultural ecosystems important
67. / considers or is explicit about certain spatial scales
68. / considers or is explicit about temporal scales, especially resilience

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Table S2. Characteristic quotes from the research clusters.

Sustainable Intensification / Bos et al. (2013) / (i)  Current institutional settings and policies are still mainly directed at economic and environmental efficiencies on the production side, while policies aimed at reducing consumption are practically non-existent. Sound policies, however, start with the acknowledgement of trade-offs between population size, consumption levels and land spared for nature. Therefore, a legitimate, but seldom asked question is which part of the total effort needed to feed the human population should be on more production […] and which part on limiting population growth, changing human diets and global redistribution of wealth.
Cunningham et al. (2013) / (i)  Defining better targets for more environmentally sustainable intensification of production must address the whole food production and distribution system. Although we focus primarily on the production sector, it is also critical to recognise that other efficiencies in the global food system could boost food availability […]. For example, significant amounts of food are lost in storage or distribution.
Garnett et al. (2013) / (i)  The need to increase production. […] Urgent action is also needed on moderating demand for resource-intensive foods (such as meat and dairy products), reducing food waste, and developing systems of governance that improve the efficiency and resilience of the food system, as well as making food accessible and affordable to all. […]
(ii)  Increased production must be met through higher yields because increasing the area of land in agriculture carries major environmental costs […].
(iii) Food security requires as much attention to increasing environmental sustainability as to raising productivity. […].
(iv)  SI denotes a goal but does not specify a priori how it should be attained or which agricultural techniques to deploy.
Sayer & Cassman (2013) / (i)  [I]ncreasing productivity is necessary but not sufficient to ensure food security, reduce poverty, improve nutrition, and maintain the natural resource base for sustainable development [ref.]. Innovations across a broader spectrum of policies and technologies are needed to confront the complex array of challenges at the agriculture–environment nexus [ref.]. Large numbers of poor farmers continue to practice extensive agriculture. Inevitably they will continue to encroach on hitherto uncultivated lands unless they can adopt innovative systems that allow for agricultural intensification and development of agricultural equipment industries, farm inputs, and food processing capacities.
Smith & Gregory (2013) / (i)  Hence, some form of sustainable intensification of food production will be required [ref.]; but more fundamental changes in food production (and consumption) will also be needed if we are to meet future challenges.
(ii)  Food security is a multi-faceted challenge, involving much more than just food production. Indeed, food production is only one of the challenges of providing food availability (which also relies on distribution and exchange), and food availability […is] only one aspect of food security which also includes food access and food utilisation.
Production Focus / Bommarco et al. (2013) / (i)  The benefits (ecosystem services) that humans derive from biodiversity have therefore become an important argument for conserving biodiversity. […I]t is important to distinguish between promoting biodiversity […] and biodiversity with inherent conservation value [ref.]. The differences between these ‘functional’ and ‘cultural’ services are at the very base of the recent land-sharing versus land-sparing debate. Consequently, arguments in favor of land sparing are largely based on how individual species can persist most efficiently, whereas arguments in favor of land sharing are largely based on the benefits humans can get from biodiversity [ref.]. Functional arguments for conserving biodiversity are […] important, but cannot replace ethical arguments.
Foley et al. (2010) / (i)  First, the transformation of agriculture must deliver sufficient food and nutrition to the world. To meet the projected demands of population growth and increasing consumption, we must roughly double food supplies in the next few decades [ref.]. We must also improve distribution and access, which will require further changes in the food system.
(ii)  Better deployment of existing crop varieties with improved management should be able to close many yield gaps [ref.], while continued improvements in crop genetics will probably increase potential yields into the future.
(iii) The search for agricultural solutions should remain technology-neutral. There are multiple paths to improving the production, food security and environmental performance of agriculture, and we should not be locked into a single approach a priori, whether it be conventional agriculture, genetic modification or organic farming.
Hill & Mustafa (2011) / (i)  [I]t appears inevitable that increased use of GMOs is required to meet increasing food demand [ref.] and it has been argued that food shortages are caused by problems in food distribution and policies and not by production levels [ref.]. The reality is that additional food supplies are urgently needed as are appropriate solutions to provide global food security [ref.] and GMOs are an important component of the food security debate.
Koh et al. (2013) / (i)  These challenges might be met by closing yield gaps […] or raising yield ceilings, reducing food lost to waste, and switching to less protein-rich or more aquaculture-based diets [ref.]. Additionally, we propose that a complementary approach is to maximise agricultural returns by planting crops that are best suited to site-specific conditions. While this strategy might seem obvious, the degree to which agricultural land use is optimised and the benefits of optimisation have not been evaluated at a global scale [...]. Therefore, for a farmer who is currently growing barley, maize, wheat and irrigated rice on his land, and if irrigated rice has the highest per-hectare realised yield given local conditions, then land-use optimisation would entail devoting the entire farmland to irrigated rice production.
McCouch (2013) / (i)  By 1997, the world economy had accrued annual benefits of approximately $115 billion from the use of crop wild relatives [ref.] as sources of environmental resilience and resistance to pests and diseases. The time is ripe for an effort to harness the full power of biodiversity to feed the world. Plant scientists must efficiently and systematically domesticate new crops and increase the productivity and sustainability of current crop-production systems.
Tilman et al. (2011) / (i)  [A]gricultural intensification through technology adaptation and transfer and enhancement of soil fertility in poorer nations would greatly reduce these yield gaps [ref.], provide a more equitable global food supply, and greatly decrease the GHG emissions and species extinctions that otherwise would have resulted from land clearing [ref.].
Social-ecological Development / Barbieri et al. (2014) / (i)  Migrations or diasporas, when they occur, can cause drastic shifts and disruptions in local knowledge and its transmission. This is what happened through the process of cultural invasions imposed by the ideology of urban industrial civilization, which was based on two false premises: superiority of technicians and researchers over rural culture (traditional knowledge) and the idea that science is the only form of valid knowledge, which transformed into ideology and a mechanism of domination of some cultures over others [ref.].
Pant (2014) / (i)  What is important to the development of critical systems of learning and innovation competence is the agency of individual and organizational actors to engage in deliberation on dialectical divides, and empowerment of vulnerable actors [ref.]. As implied by the unintended positive consequences of the reformist interventions, community empowerment should be done through critical systems of learning and innovation, encouraging people to radically question their social, ecological, and technical reality
Lewis, et al. (2011) / (i)  The Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) model operates primarily with communities surrounding national parks, strengthening conservation benefits produced by these protected areas. COMACO first identifies the least food-secure households and trains them in sustainable agricultural practices that minimize threats to natural resources while meeting household needs. In addition, COMACO identifies people responsible for severe natural resource depletion and trains them to generate alternative income sources.
(ii)  COMACO provides education in farming practices that improve soil quality and mitigate losses to drought and flooding. However, such improvements have not yet translated into discernable differences in food security. Determining whether benefits have in fact been conferred without attaining food security is difficult in the absence of pre- and post-COMACO controls.
Barthel et al. (2013) / (i)  However, if the task is to safeguard global food security1, it is not only the biological components of ecosystems that must be curated. Due to the varying historical and geographical conditions under which species have been (and are currently) cultivated, it is also important to safeguard knowledge of management practices that relate to these conditions. Using an interdisciplinary frame of analysis, we discuss areas where food continues to be produced in a context that links biological diversity and social memory, and which carries place specific insight.
(ii)  Industrialization of agriculture has led to a remarkable increase in food production, which, along with advances in medicine, has enhanced life expectancy and health for growing populations in most nations (Rosling, 2007). Despite this, the number of undernourished children in many countries constantly increases, and history records people’s starving even when food supplies in their own nations were at overflow levels s and experiences of stewardship.
Jackson et al. (2013) / (i)  In the scientific literature, there are surprisingly little observational and experimental data describing the social-ecological aspects of coupled human and natural systems across biomes. In this study, use of an expert judgment approach suggests that biodiversity use and conservation is closely aligned with aspects of human capital related to local knowledge and its exchange. Food security, however, was highest where agricultural intensification relied on agrochemical inputs, and was supported by strong financial and physical capital assets. These results suggest that resolving the current debate on biodiversity conservation vs. food security requires much greater attention to livelihoods, cultural integrity and other aspects of human well-being