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Sustainable intensification of agricultural production is needed to ensure increased productivity relative to inputs. Short-term yield returns and labor input are major determinants of the fate of sustainable intensification options on smallholder farms in sub-Saharan Africa because labor shortage is often acute, and most farmers lack access to labor-saving technologies. We assessed the relationship between maize grain yield change and labor input from a total of 28 published papers (631 data pairs) including subsets of data pairs within specific sustainable intensification practices. Among the reviewed technologies, manually dug planting basins showed ratios between the change in yield and change in labor inputs (ΔY/ΔL) below 1, suggesting that labor demand increased more than yield. In contrast, ridging showed average ΔY/ΔL values ≥ 2. No-till showed high ΔY/ΔL (average ≥ 1.7) when combined …