Reducing reliance on pesticides
A Lighter Touch is one of the ways the Foundation of Arable Research is helping its growers prepare for a crop protection future with less reliance on agrichemicals.
At their recent annual conference, FAR senior researcher Jo Drummond spoke about the role the programme plays in the future of crop protection in New Zealand. Fresh and process vegetables producers who also grow arable crops share similar issues. A written summary of her presentation follows.
The future of crop protection in New Zealand. Author: Jo Drummond, FAR
Current weed, pest and disease management of arable crops relies heavily on agrichemical use.
Growers use crop protection products because they are effective. The benefits to their use are easily seen as the weed or insect pest dies or the disease is stopped in its tracks, reducing yield loss. While costly, pesticides can provide a rapid return on investment.
However, use of pesticides can carry a high environmental footprint and are susceptible to loss of production because of regulatory changes or the emergence of resistance in key weed, pest and pathogen populations. Increasingly consumer demand for residue free food products is also creating a need to reconsider arable production systems.
With the global population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050 and the negative impact of climate change on agriculture, productivity per unit of cultivated area must be increased to provide sufficient food to support the world’s population. This places us at an impasse. We need to grow more, on less land, with fewer tools.
Pesticides will continue to be part of the solution, but their use will be more strategic as we integrate other practices such as precision agriculture, biodiversity, biological products, biological controls, plant breeding and cultural practices. This can seem like a daunting task, as for some of us it will require behavioural change, but it is perhaps not as scary as it seems at first glance.
‘A Lighter Touch’ is just one example of how FAR is committed to helping growers prepare for the future. This agroecology focused programme aligns research across three key themes:
- Effective use of plant genetics: which includes the development of disease management strategies based on cultivar selection and novel strategies to support cultivar stewardship.
- Integrating new crop protection technologies: which identifies biological products that have a fit for arable production systems and how biological products can be incorporated into disease management programmes.
- Rationalising chemical pesticide programmes: which is the development of balanced, profitable fungicide programmes that have a reduced environmental and economic footprint; and support for the uptake of IPM practices.
Alongside ‘A Lighter Touch’, FAR’s research programme includes blending cultural and chemical practices for weed management, the long-term impacts of diverse systems through the use of cover crops and the role of precision agriculture, AI and machine learning.
It is the cumulative benefit of combining these strategies that will provide optimum efficacy. This approach allows us to sustainably meet our immediate needs and will help ensure access to the tools we need to grow productive and profitable crops in the future.
Read summaries of other presentations at the FAR conference here.
