When you pick up a new book with a title that includes the words Agricultural, Environmental and Sustainability, you ought to find content that will present novel evidence, stretch existing ideas, and develop critical insights for future actions and policies. This book, though, largely does little more than to fill in some gaps in existing paradigms. Nine chapters cover agroforestry, soils, whole systems integration, wheat improvement, rice-wheat systems, cowpea-cereal interactions and drought stresses in banana production. Some of the content is very good, but the mix is eclectic. Some chapters seem to be broad in scope; others are very place specific, and thus it is difficult to draw clear conclusions on agricultural and environmental sustainability. The papers arise from a 2005 symposium, and it is disappointing that most of the chapters in a 2007 book do not contain updates covering the intervening two years. As a result, some of them contain data only up to the 2000–2003 period, which already begins to make this book feel outdated in its publication year.

The final chapter stands out in terms of presenting novelty – by Francis, Elmore, Ikerd and Duffy. This discusses the greening of agriculture in the context of rapidly globalizing economies and the emergence of the troubling greenwash syndrome. They also address interesting questions: are small farms better for sustainability or not? What kinds of metrics are critical for encouraging a transition towards sustainability? Other notable chapters by Ramachandran Nair and Lal are helpful summaries of agroforestry and soils management, but readers familiar with these authors are unlikely to find anything especially new here.

This book is a welcome addition to the literature, but ultimately will leave the reader wishing for more novelty.