Reconciling Pesticide Reduction with Economic and Environmental Sustainability in Arable Farming

Abstract

Reducing pesticide use is one of the high-priority targets in the quest for a sustainable agriculture. Until now, most studies dealing with pesticide use reduction have compared a limited number of experimental prototypes. Here we assessed the sustainability of 48 arable cropping systems from two major agricultural regions of France, including conventional, integrated and organic systems, with a wide range of pesticide use intensities and management (crop rotation, soil tillage, cultivars, fertilization, etc.). We assessed cropping system sustainability using a set of economic, environmental and social indicators. We failed to detect any positive correlation between pesticide use intensity and both productivity (when organic farms were excluded) and profitability. In addition, there was no relationship between pesticide use and workload. We found that crop rotation diversity was higher in cropping systems with low pesticide use, which would support the important role of crop rotation diversity in integrated and organic strategies. In comparison to conventional systems, integrated strategies showed a decrease in the use of both pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers, they consumed less energy and were frequently more energy efficient. Integrated systems therefore appeared as the best compromise in sustainability trade-offs. Our results could be used to re-design current cropping systems, by promoting diversified crop rotations and the combination of a wide range of available techniques contributing to pest management.

Eight principles of integrated pest management

“…It would emphasize the evaluation of yield, yield stability, and profit over multiple years at the cropping system level. Lechenet et al (2014) provide an example of an approach to assess pesticide use intensity at the cropping system level while taking into account multiple trade-offs. Research and extension work at the farm community level will develop new standards of reference, and performance criteria can become widely shared among farmers.…”

Organic fields sustain weed metacommunity dynamics in farmland landscapes

“…Using a spatially stratified design on 465 fields, we quantify the relative contribution of landscape-( proportion of OF in a 1 km buffer around a focal field) versus field-scale processes (organic or conventional management; field core versus field margin) on weed diversity at several spatial scales: within field, field, between fields and landscape. As OF systems are characterized by more diversified crop successions [36], which favours weed richness [37] as well as a clumped distribution of farms [38], we controlled for crop successions, field size, soil type, land use and semi-natural elements in our models to account for these confounding spatio-temporal effects.…”

Plaguicidas Agricolas: Un Marco De Referencia Para Evaluar Riesgos a La Salud en Comunidades Rurales en El Estado De Sonora, México

“…En lo que se refiere a los cultivos, Lechenet et al (2014), señalan que entre las alternativas disponibles con mínimo efecto sobre la rentabilidad de los cultivos pueden ser el uso de sistemas agrí-colas integrados que promueven la diversificación y rotación de cultivos, así como la combinación de una amplia gama de técnicas disponibles que contribuyen al manejo de las plagas. En su trabajo los autores comprueban que el manejo integrado de plagas no afecta la rentabilidad de los cultivos ni tiene una mayor carga de mano de obra si se mantiene un sistema de rotación de cultivos.…”