What does sustainability mean? And what does it mean in agriculture? Several discourses with diverging and sometimes even conflicting ideas exist on how momentary and future generations should be fed. The topic of ‘sustainability’ in agriculture is a highly political one. In our work, we therefore attempt to differentiate between scientific ideas and international political promises. A critical discourse analysis of United Nations (UN) documents (Jäger 2015) and a comparison with the current scientific literature (Mayring & Fenzl 2014) showed that both stakeholder groups have different ideas. Especially when looking at the recipients of ‘sustainable agriculture’, it becomes clear that the discourses reflect ‘sustainable agriculture’ in different ways. While the scientific debate mostly focuses on ‘environmentally friendly practices’ to compensate for the damages of the Green Revolution and on a parallel increase of profitability, the UN discourse has split the focus between promoting human rights in developing countries and the non-specified idea of ‘sustainable intensification’ – in order to gain global food security. These developments can be traced back to different interests and the different roles of the stakeholder groups in society. Through the systematic representation of the discourses, the work can contribute to an enhanced understanding of the interests of both stakeholder groups and therefore show some of the reasons for conflict.