Ecological Intensification for Crop Protection

Abstract

We need to break away from intensive agriculture based on non-renewable and toxic inputs. Safer practices are indeed emerging. Sustainable agriculture started about 50 years ago with the design of integrated pest management (IPM) to counteract pesticide misuse and abuse. Ecological intensifi cation emerged only a few years ago. Here we review the literature to compare ecological intensifi cation and IPM, from the point of view of crop protection. We present also agroecology and organic farming. Neither ecological intensifi cation nor IPM have philosophical bases such as agroecology, or to an even larger extent, biodynamic agriculture. Ecological intensifi cation, IPM and agroecology are polysemous, fl exible and pragmatic approaches, whereas organic farming is well-defi ned by its scope and standards. Ecological intensifi cation, in explicitly pursuing the goal of increasing food production to feed the planet, differs from agroecology, whose proponents think that the view that world hunger will be solved by merely increasing yield is an oversimplifi cation. In terms of cropping system design, in its actual practice, IPM often remains based on methods that increase the effi ciency of chemical pesticide use. Or, along with organic agriculture, it may remain based on substitution of pesticides by less harmful alternatives. In contrast, ecologically intensive crop protection usually requires cropping system redesign.In terms of ecosystem service provision, IPM tends to focus on the pest-pathogen regulation service. In contrast, both ecological intensifi cation and agroecology pay attention to both practices which were designed for crop protection and biomass provision purposes, as well as practices with broader scope, primarily designed to offer other ecosystem services which are found to have indirect effects on crop Ecological Intensifi cation for Crop Protection Alain Ratnadass and Marco BarzmanA. Ratnadass (*) UR HortSys, CIRAD , Boulevard de la Lironde , F-34398 Montpellier , France e-mail: alain.ratnadass@cirad.fr M. Barzman Eco-Innov, INRA , F-78850 Thiverval-Grignon , France e-mail: Marco.Barzman@grignon.inra.fr 54 protection. This chapter also describes selected tropical case studies of crop protection, such as upland rice seed-dressing and fruit fl y control in orchards, to compare and contrast crop protection in these contexts. Finally, we propose to consider IPM and ecologically intensive crop protection as complementary rather than confl icting approaches. The concept of "ultimate IPM" brings IPM closer to ecologically intensive crop protection. This new approach involves starting from a nearly natural ecosystem to which inputs are gradually added when absolutely necessary, rather than starting from a conventional agroecosystem and gradually remove inputs from it. Keywords

Eco‐efficiency as a strategy for optimizing the sustainability of pest management

“…Eco-efficiency would complement many existing efforts such as the push for sustainable intensification 29,54 including the efficiency-substitution-redesign framework. 54 If eco-efficiency targets could be set and realized for multiple case studies this would provide considerable evidence that pesticide externalities in agriculture can be reduced without environmental litigation and associated regulatory actions. In addition, the measurement of on-farm IPM adoption often presents a considerable record-keeping burden to growers that might be more efficiently measured by an eco-efficiency index.…”

“…Ultimately, we believe eco‐efficiency is a sustainability strategy that provides a framework for stakeholders with competing interests to have constructive dialogue. Eco‐efficiency would complement many existing efforts such as the push for sustainable intensification including the efficiency–substitution–redesign framework . If eco‐efficiency targets could be set and realized for multiple case studies this would provide considerable evidence that pesticide externalities in agriculture can be reduced without environmental litigation and associated regulatory actions.…”

Approaches and mechanisms for ecologically based pest management across multiple scales

“…A network of semi-natural non-crop landscape elements in an agricultural landscape can enhance biocontrol and biodiversity by providing various resources for the survival of beneficial insects that suppress crop pests but require resources in non-crop habitat patches (Steingrover et al, 2010) The fourth mechanism by which landscape patterns affect pest levels is that loss of semi-natural habitats in an agricultural landscape has a negative effect on natural enemies (Hunter, 2002;Benton et al, 2003;Rand et al, 2006). With the expansion of cropland expansion and agricultural intensification, non-crop habitats have dramatically decreased (Crowder and Jabbour, 2014;Rand et al, 2014), compromising their ability to sustain a diversified community of natural enemies and resulting in the decline of key biocontrol agents and an increased possibility of outbreaks of some pests (Kruess and Tscharntke, 2000;Ratnadass and Barzman, 2014). High loss of key habitats may disrupt the relationships between pests and their natural enemies, and decreasing levels of biocontrol through reducing refuges or overwintering habitats in agricultural landscapes .…”

Integrated pest management: good intentions, hard realities. A review

“…As a result, over the 60 years of IPM's existence, ecology, which is largely incompatible with the use of chemicals, has been neglected. Moreover, in cases w h e r e t h e c o n c e p t o f e c o l o g y i s u s e d i n I P M , environmentalism is referenced more often than ecology, i.e., the aim to reduce negative environmental impacts (Lucas et al 2017), rather than using ecological processes to replace chemical pesticides (Geiger et al 2010;Lescourret et al 2015b;Ratnadass and Barzman 2014). At most, pest population dynamics (which indeed pertains to the scientific field of population ecology) are studied in order to set economic thresholds.…”

“…The United Nations (UN) recommend agroecology both as a new approach to development and as a comprehensive alternative to the massive and hazardous use of pesticides, in order to meet the challenges of food rights and human rights (UN (United Nations) 2017). Other concepts have highlighted the importance of promoting ecological processes in agroecosystems while increasing agronomic performance: ecologically intensive agriculture and ecological intensification (Doré et al 2011;Griffon 2013;Ratnadass and Barzman 2014) and other forms of agriculture using the word "green" in a variety of forms, e.g., "making agriculture green again" (Kuyper and Struik 2014). Today, agroecology provides the main thrust of functional biodiversity to enhance ecological function and the ecosystem services which result from it (Ahmed et al 2016;Bommarco et al 2013;Demestihas et al 2017;Duru et al 2015;Gaba et al 2015;Isbell et al 2017;Petit and Lescourret 2019;Tilman et al 2006) notably through spatio-temporal diversification of agroecosystems (Duru et al 2015;Gaba et al 2015;Malézieux et al 2009;Ratnadass et al 212;Tittonell 2014).…”