Benefits and Risks of Intercropping for Crop Resilience and Pest Management

Abstract

To combat climate change, farmers must innovate through ecological intensification to boost food production, increase resilience to weather extremes, and shrink the carbon footprint of agriculture. Intercropping (where alternative crops or noncrop plants are integrated with cash crops) can strengthen and stabilize agroecosystems under climate change by improving resource use efficiency, enhancing soil water holding capacity, and increasing the diversity and quality of habitat for beneficial insects that provide pollination services and natural pest control. Despite these benefits, intercropping has yet to be widely adopted due to perceived risks and challenges including decreased crop yield, increased management complexity, a steep learning curve for successful management, and increased susceptibility to pests. Here, we explore the major benefits of intercropping in agricultural systems for pest control and climate resilience reported in 24 meta-analyses, while addressing risks and barriers to implementation. Most studies demonstrate clear benefits of intercropping for weed, pathogen, insect pest control, relative yield, and gross profitability. However, relatively few studies document ecosystem services conferred by intercrops alongside labor costs, which are key to economic sustainability for farmers. In addition to clearer demonstrations of the economic viability of intercropping, farmers also need strong technical and financial support during the adoption process to help them troubleshoot the site-specific complexities and challenges of managing polycultures. Ecological intensification of agriculture requires a more strategic approach than simplified production systems and is not without risks and challenges. Calibrating incentive programs to reduce financial burdens of risk for farmers could promote more widespread adoption of intercropping.

Bio-Intensive Tactics for the Management of Invasive Fall Armyworm for Organic Maize Production

“…Despite the availability of successful modules on the use of habitat manipulation for managing other maize borer pests such as stem borers [ 16 ], extensive research on agro-ecological approach for the management of Fall Armyworm under Indian conditions is lacking. Furthermore, using vegetable crops as intercrops to reduce the incidence is a novel concept as it also generates additional income for farmers [ 17 ].…”

Biological control interventions reduce pest abundance and crop damage while maintaining natural enemies in sub-Saharan Africa: a meta-analysis

“…Our results showed no overall change in NEA following biocontrol application when compared to untreated fields, although we found a significant decline in NEA following botanical pesticide application. The most likely explanation for this is that the interventions have reduced prey availability for natural enemies, making them move to other more profitable foraging locations, which has been shown in previous studies on intercropping where pest number, not the interventions, influenced PA [59,60]. However, the direct negative impact of some interventions, such as some broad-spectrum botanical pesticides, cannot be excluded [61].…”

Environmental context and herbivore traits mediate the strength of associational effects in a meta‐analysis of crop diversity

“…Our meta‐analysis reinforces the use of bicultures as a pest management tool (Huss et al, 2022), although with several contingencies. Most agricultural crops have well‐resolved relationships between pest abundance and damage levels that are used as ‘economic thresholds’ for when to apply management action (Oerke, 2006; Pedigo et al, 1986).…”

“…A synthesis of agricultural studies seems particularly well suited to address these questions because intercropping (i.e. planting another species with a cash crop) is an agricultural technique that aims to reduce pest damage and minimize inputs (Huss et al, 2022). Therefore, there are ample previous studies comparing insect abundance in monocultures versus bicultures established under a variety of environmental conditions using crops that are attacked by a variety of insect herbivore pests with different traits (Barbosa et al, 2009).…”