AgriGuide

Shifting to non-chemical methods

Crop protection through the use of big amounts of pesticides is primarily reactive; as soon as first individuals of a pest are sighted, or the population reaches a certain size, farmers start to consider what pesticide they can use to reduce the number of pest organisms.

The advantage of this method is that the desired result is achieved quickly and will continue for as long as the pesticide remains effective. However, in the past few decades, more and more pests have become resistant to chemical products. Furthermore, chemical pesticides often have a very broad impact, which means they kill not only pests but also useful organisms, and they are sometimes poisonous to humans as well.

For all these reasons, protecting crops through regular applications of chemical pesticides has become less and less effective. Protecting crops with little or no use of pesticides is possible, but it requires a way of thinking that takes into account the life cycle of pests.

Rather than choosing to eradicate a pest as soon as small number of individuals are noted in the field, farmers should ask themselves why the pest comes back every time a new crop is planted and how it reproduces itself so rapidly in that particular crop. It will soon become clear that pests take advantage of certain circumstances.

These circumstances may be related to the pest, to the crop, to environmental conditions, or to a combination of the three.

This knowledge forms the basis for a more pro-active (preventive) approach to crop protection. Being pro-active means that farmers accept the presence of pests on the farm, but are at the same time able to organise their farming activities and adjust their cultivation techniques so that pest populations do not become too large and that damage remains within acceptable limits. In the unusual event that of a population of a particular pest threatening to reach an unacceptable level, pesticides with the least unwanted effects can still be applied as the last resort.