Abstract: Sustainable intensification in agriculture (SI) is a realistic pathway to ensure global food security and deal with famine, poverty, and climate change. We constructed a SI research framework using methods such as literature, induction, and deduction. We reviewed the progress of SI research from four aspects, including the conceptual origin, index system, research scale, and evaluation methods. We discussed the future development path to provide reference for deepening related research of SI and its relation from the multi-disciplinary angle. There are many kinds of research on SI across the world, which give rich connotations to SI based on multiple dimensions of productivity, economy, environment, and society. The evaluation of SI involves productivity, economy, environment, human and society. It has formed a comprehensive evaluation system such as material input, resource productivity, environmental and economic efficiency, and other multiple indicators. Moreover, the evaluation methods of SI mainly include the factor comprehensive evaluation method and index model evaluation method. Studies on SI are not abundant in China, which needs to be enriched. We should break through the constraints of traditional theoretical and methodological frameworks, focus on the transformative scientific issues brought by international development, and explore the research paradigm of SI from the cross-disciplinary perspective.

Key words: sustainable intensification in agriculture, index system, evaluation method, research prospect