Co‐Benefits of Intercropping on Crop Productivity, Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration and N 2 O Mitigation

Abstract

Intercropping is a promising sustainable agriculture practice, but its adoption is hindered by the potential reduction in benefits when shifting from monoculture to intercropping, especially if there are trade‐offs between yield, soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions. In this study, we synthesized 3843 paired observations from 510 field‐based studies that compared the yields, SOC and N 2 O emissions of intercropping systems (only crop‐crop intercropping for grain yield and including crop‐tree agroforestry in addition to crop‐crop intercropping for SOC and N 2 O) with monoculture systems. Our meta‐analysis revealed that on average, intercropping increased grain yields by 22.3%, calorie production by 16.1% and protein yields by 14.4%, while reducing N 2 O emissions by 14.3%. Legume‐based intercropping was found to be more effective than non‐legume intercropping. Intercropping also significantly increased SOC content, with crop‐tree agroforestry outperforming crop‐crop intercropping (average increases of 15.5% and 6.1%, respectively). However, the effectiveness of intercropping systems varies depending on climate, soil properties and management practices. Based on data‐driven machine learning models, our upscaling analyses show that converting monoculture land to cereal‐legume intercropping could increase grain yields by 5.35 × 10 8 Mg yr. −1 , potentially feeding nearly 1013 million people. This conversion could also enhance SOC stocks by 2.84 Pg C yr. −1 and reduce N 2 O emissions by 625 Gg N yr. −1 , resulting in a reduction of 10.6 Pg CO 2 ‐eq yr. −1 for net global warming potential. Overall, converting monoculture systems to intercropping could generate approximately US$595 billion in economic benefits annually. These findings highlight the critical role of intercropping as a scalable nature‐based solution for addressing the dual challenges of global food security and climate change.