Sustainable intensification (SI) responds to the concurrent challenges of increasing food production while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture. As an early disclosure of innovation, patents are a useful indicator of technology market potential. However, we lack understanding of the extent to which current agricultural technology patents relate to the goals of SI and which kinds of technologies can potentially address SI. Here, we analyzed the diffusion and focus of more than one million patents issued during the period 1970–2022. We explored the degree to which the patents relate to SI through the co-occurrence of efficiency and environmental friendliness targets. Our results reveal that while the rate of patent issuance has dramatically increased over the past five decades, the rate at which patents diffused to different countries had decreased over time. The USA was the biggest net exporter of patents and had produced by far the most high-impact patents (in the top 1% most-cited patents). Since 1970, only 4% of agricultural patents and 6% of high-impact patents were related to SI targets (i.e., promoting both agricultural efficiency and environmental friendliness), but the attention to SI has increased over time. The most highly cited SI-related patents had become more diverse over time, shifting from digital, machine, and energy technologies in 1980s to the current era of agroecology, information, and computer networking. Our results provide an early indication of promising technologies that may play a greater role for SI in the future, subject to the challenges of market transfer and farm adoption and complemented by non-technological innovations in farm management and institutional support.

可持续集约化（SI）应对增加粮食产量同时减少农业对环境影响的同时挑战。作为创新的早期披露，专利是技术市场潜力的有用指标。然而，我们对当前农业技术专利与 SI 目标的相关程度以及哪些技术可以潜在地解决 SI 缺乏了解。在这里，我们分析了 1970 年至 2022 年期间发布的超过 100 万项专利的扩散和焦点。我们通过效率和环境友好目标的同时出现来探讨专利与 SI 的相关程度。我们的研究结果表明，虽然专利发放率在过去五年中急剧增加，但专利扩散到不同国家的速度却随着时间的推移而下降。美国是最大的专利净出口国，并且拥有迄今为止最具影响力的专利（位于被引用次数最多的前 1% 专利中）。自1970年以来，只有4%的农业专利和6%的高影响力专利与SI目标（即促进农业效率和环境友好）相关，但随着时间的推移，对SI的关注度不断增加。随着时间的推移，被引用次数最多的 SI 相关专利变得更加多样化，从 20 世纪 80 年代的数字、机器和能源技术转向当前的农业生态、信息和计算机网络时代。我们的研究结果提供了一些有前景的技术的早期迹象，这些技术可能在未来对 SI 发挥更大的作用，但要面临市场转移和农场采用的挑战，并辅之以农场管理和机构支持方面的非技术创新。