Designing Intercropping in Vegetables, Scope for Improvements

Nowadays, our global agricultural sector is confronting with two important challenges. On one hand, many argue that agriculture has to be intensified to increase food production in order to meet the total demand of a growing global population, expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. On the other hand, agricultural practices should preserve the environment, the very basis of our food production. A priori, one might expect farmers to be unable to face these two challenges at the same time, as many regions in the world have shown examples of a depletion of environmental resources directly linked with agricultural development. In that sense, how could farmers produce more and at the same time have less impact on their land? Ecological intensification of agriculture aims at meeting these two challenges simultaneously. It seeks the maximization of primary production per unit area without compromising the ability of the system to sustain its productive capacity (FAO, 2009). Ecological intensification and its objective of maximisation is especially relevant on agricultural fields surrounding cities. Indeed, since 2006, more than half of the global population is urban (World statistics, 2014) and completely rely on the agricultural sector for its food consumption. Also, with emerging fossil fuel shortages in the South as in the North, food transport might soon become a relevant economic factor. Consequently, it seems wise to grow as maximum food as possible close to the urban demand and to design more resilient food chains and therefore ensure food security in the long run. Another reason which makes ecological intensification and the fact of growing more food on less land desirable around cities is the strong economic pressure on the price of land in these areas. On top of that, there is an increasing demand for fresh organic and locally grown products, especially fruits and vegetables, in certain cities of Western countries such as Paris or Brussels. Obviously, for these reasons, being able to produce more vegetables per square meter provides a great advantage for the producer located around such cities. For several decades, there have been different actors working for the development of ecological intensification. For instance, since 1972, in North America, the movement Ecology Action and its colleagues have been researching and developing Grow Biointensive®, a high-yielding, sustainable agricultural system that emphasizes local food production and is based historically on intensive gardening systems (Ecology Action, 2014). This system is a source of inspiration for many backyard gardeners and for some commercial small scale farms.