Global determinants of yield variability under sustainable farming approaches across climate, soil, and topography. A meta-analysis.

Enhancing ecosystem services without compromising crop productivity is a central challenge for sustainable agriculture, yet biophysical drivers of yield variability across farming approaches remain poorly resolved. Here, we provide the first comparative global assessment of how climate, soil, and topographic conditions shape yield responses to agroforestry, cover cropping, no-tillage, and organic farming by synthesizing global meta-analytic datasets and linking field comparisons to a common framework of biophysical moderators. Across all sustainable farming approaches, there was no significant overall yield difference relative to conventional management (1.1%; 95% confidence interval -0.7 to 3.0%), but outcomes diverged across biophysical contexts. While agroforestry and cover cropping showed statistically significant positive yield effects under specific aridity conditions, no-tillage was consistently associated with statistically significant yield reductions in wetter environments, and organic farming showed no significant overall effect. Responses across soil and topographic gradients were context-dependent, with significant effects observed for specific soil types and elevated or sloping landscapes, whereas most other patterns were not consistently statistically significant. These findings demonstrate that environmental heterogeneity governs yield responses to sustainable farming approaches and support context-specific implementation strategies to improve agricultural sustainability and resilience. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-026-01133-7.