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In the coming decades, a crucial challenge for humanity will be meeting future food demands without undermining further the integrity of the Earth’s environmental systems^,,,,,. Agricultural systems are already major forces of global environmental degradation^,, but population growth and increasing consumption of calorie- and meat-intensive diets are expected to roughly double human food demand by 2050 (ref. ). Responding to these pressures, there is increasing focus on ‘sustainable intensification’ as a means to increase yields on underperforming landscapes while simultaneously decreasing the environmental impacts of agricultural systems^,,,,,,. However, it is unclear what such efforts might entail for the future of global agricultural landscapes. Here we present a global-scale assessment of intensification prospects from closing ‘yield gaps’ (differences between observed yields and those attainable in a given …