Degrowth proponents advocate reducing ecologically destructive forms of production and resource throughput in wealthy economies to achieve environmental goals, while transforming production to focus on human well-being. Here we present a quantitative model to test degrowth principles in the food and land system. Our results confirm that reducing and redistributing income alone, within current development paradigms, leads to limited greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation from agriculture and land-use change, as the nutrition transition towards unsustainable diets already occurs at relatively low income levels. Instead, we show that a structural, qualitative food system transformation can achieve a steady-state food system economy that is net GHG-neutral by 2100 while improving nutritional outcomes. This sustainable transformation reduces material throughput via a convergence towards a needs-based food system, is enabled by a more equitable income distribution and includes efficient resource allocation through the pricing of GHG emissions as a complementary strategy. It thereby integrates degrowth and efficiency perspectives.

Degrowth 的支持者提倡减少富裕经济体中具有生态破坏性的生产形式和资源吞吐量，以实现环境目标，同时将生产转变为关注人类福祉。在这里，我们提出了一个定量模型来测试食物和土地系统中的退化原理。我们的结果证实，在当前的发展模式下，仅靠减少和重新分配收入会导致农业和土地利用变化带来的温室气体 (GHG) 减排有限，因为营养向不可持续饮食的转变已经发生在相对较低的收入水平。相反，我们表明，结构性、定性的粮食系统转型可以实现稳态粮食系统经济，到 2100 年实现净温室气体中性，同时改善营养成果。这种可持续转型通过向基于需求的粮食系统趋同来减少物质吞吐量，通过更公平的收入分配实现，并包括通过温室气体排放定价作为补充战略的有效资源分配。因此，它整合了去增长和效率的观点。