Paradoxical agriculture as a conditional framework for balancing food production, climate action, ecosystem health and the sustainable development goals

Abstract Improvements in agricultural production are possible without degrading ecological resources; however, the benefits that enable sustainable food security are often unequally distributed. This integrative and critical narrative review explores these tensions in relation to food security, water resources, resource use, climate change and terrestrial biodiversity. The evidence base comprises a synthesis of key publications from the initial bibliography, supplemented by focused verification and literature updates conducted on 15 September 2026 using publisher databases, scholarly literature and intergovernmental reports. Production benefits are qualitatively structured according to delayed costs, implications for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), intervention mechanisms and constraints. Three recurring issues arise: environmental costs and benefits are shifted off-farm, efficiency gains are mistaken for actual resource reductions and responsibility for transition costs and benefits remains unclear. Evidence supports several component practices, including diversification and improved resource management, but no single named sustainability approach has consistently achieved all desired outcomes. Land Maxing is examined as a proposed pathway linking restoration of degraded land with participatory domestication of culturally valued indigenous species and locally retained enterprise income; its components have empirical support, but the full pathway has not yet been evaluated against a comparator. The proposed framework reframes agricultural paradoxes as conditional and testable relationships rather than inevitable consequences of intensification. Its primary function is to provide a common framework for assessing mechanisms, distributional impacts and scale-dependent consequences. Study selection was purposive, evidence designs were heterogeneous and no pooled effect size was calculated due to methodological diversity. Successful transition requires locally relevant bundles of practices, credible ecological boundaries, secure rights and integrated assessment of production and welfare outcomes.