Attempts for undoing the ecological incompatibility of agricultural technologies: from ecological pest management to agroecology

Abstract

Current agroecology is often categorized into three facets, science, practice, and movement. While the latter two aspects currently play significant and varying roles in different regions of the world, the fundamental aspect is the first one, the scientific approach that subsequently provided the possibility of the birth of the other two. The concept of integrated plant protection i.e., the emphasis on ecological considerations in chemical pest control emerged as a revolutionary novel concept in the middle of the last century. Among the priority principles, there are several similarities between ecological plant protection suggested by the pioneering Hungarian researcher Barnabás Nagy in 1957 and integrated pest management (IPM) initiated by US scientists Stern et al. in 1959, in given aspects such as the use of natural enemies, forecasting, and environmentally friendly strategies. In turn, the principles of ecological plant protection and IPM overlap on numerous points, but differences are also apparent. Neither of these strategies, however, emphases with due vigor the significance of persistence, pesticide residues, and chronic health-damaging effects. By today, properly assessing the environmental fate, behavior and chronic side effects of pesticides have become as important as taking the rapidly changing composition of local communities into consideration by the above three aspects of agroecology. The current pesticide re-registration strategy of the European Union focuses on prolonged changes from chronic effects. Ecological plant protection and IPM set preferences of sustainability e.g., the use of mechanical or biological protection methods and lowering the rate of agrochemical protection, but they have failed to establish transparent sustainability requirements that are easy to comprehend by general consumers. In contrast, ecological (organic) agriculture managed to formulate such clear regulations (a complete ban on synthetic pesticides), which is well-reflected in their rising preference by consumers but failed to prove that observed health benefits of organic produce is indeed due to the lack of the residues of those pesticides banned. In turn, the ecological approach currently has a strong presence in the form of the determined agroecological objectives of the European Green Deal. In retrospect, it is particularly impressive to observe the path of IPM, sustainable agriculture and all three aspects agroecology all rooted in the establishment of the ecological initiatives in the late fifties as their common historical scientific starting point.

Historical context of the origins of the biological-ecological approach to plant protection

“…Since the millennium it has gained significant momentum that is still rising (Figure 1)although the idea is still not attributed to Nagy personally. The paper of Székács and Darvas (2022) analyzes the current status of agroecology and the impact of biological and ecological sciences on the evolution of the concept of sustainable agriculture. Their paper presents a precise scientific definition of ecological pest management and identifies the overlaps and differences with the generally accepted method of integrated pest management.…”

“…at the Plant Protection Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture of Hungary, Budapest). The second paper was written by Székács and Darvas (2022). It discusses the current status of ecological plant protection and how it has been influenced by the works of Nagy and his contemporaries in Hungary and abroad.…”