Head over to www.hungry4change.eu for your chance to join the debate on the future of sustainable agricultural productivity in Europe. This November the crop protection (pesticide) industry will webcast the ‘Hungry for Change’ conference. You can have your say via Facebook and Twitter; this is a unique opportunity to share your thoughts and ideas with industry, experts and stakeholders.

The ‘super’ house-mouse and the malaria carrying mosquito have made the news recently. They are just two of a growing number of pest species that are becoming less and less effected by the chemicals we use to control them. In Europe, this is quite literally a growing problem; agricultural yields are threatened by pest resistance, and regulations lack short-term solutions. The ‘super mouse’ is not a super hero, but its story may save us with the warning it carries.

One instinctive goal

We share the planet Earth with an estimated 8.7 million other species - that’s an incalculable number of individual organisms with one instinctive goal – survival.

Living organisms are not created equally; some are better equipped for survival than others. Darwin popularised the concept of ‘survival of the fittest’; a metaphor for his theory of ‘natural selection’, the more favourable chance of survival of organisms better adapted for their immediate, local environment.

Natural selection drives change in species; the genetic variations within a group of organisms may see some individuals survive in a particular environment, whilst others die out. If the advantageous genetic characteristics of the surviving organisms are passed to the next generation, then the new generation is better equipped for survival. This process can repeat until species populations have adapted themselves for particular ecological niches.

A challenge

Species adaptation represents opportunity and threat to agricultural production. Natural selection complicates the process of crop protection; pests and diseases adapt and avoid the intended effects of pesticides.

The pesticide used to treat a particular crop may not be effective on all of the target species within a target area. When this occurs, future generations of the pest are likely to share more of the genetic characteristics that protect them against the pesticide. This is known as pesticide resistance.

Pesticide resistance is not unlike the growing problem of the resistance of certain pathogens to human antibiotics. Eighty percent of the often deadly E.coli bacteria is resistant to at least one of the drugs formulated to treat it. Other non-agriculture examples that have made headlines in recent weeks, are new levels of malaria mosquito resistance to insecticides, and house-mouse resistance to rodenticides – the rise of the so called ‘super mouse’.

The Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC) defines pesticide resistance as ‘… a heritable change in the sensitivity of a pest population that is reflected in the repeated failure of a product to achieve the expected level of control …’.

Agricultural pesticide resistance has serious implications; most notably crop losses that exceed economically viable limits and, the danger of incorrect pesticide use as larger than prescribed doses may be applied in attempt to counter a lack of efficacy. Both of these scenarios pose a particular threat to the environment; in the form of over application of pesticide, or the expansion of farmland in order to compensate for crop losses.

Solutions

There are a number of measures and techniques aimed at avoiding pesticide resistance (or delaying its onset), including:

• Avoiding unnecessary pesticide applications; limiting an organism’s exposure to active ingredients delays the onset of resistance.
• Providing refuge areas for target species; ensuring the survival of genetic susceptibility to the plant protection product.
• Alternating between pesticide classes; rotating the use of products which have different effects on organisms lessens the probability of target species developing resistance.
• Combining (‘tankmixing’) pesticide products in one application is another method of complicating the onset of resistance.

Avoiding the unnecessary use of pesticides and the provision of refuge areas for pest (and other) organisms, are considered good practice and relatively easy measures to implement. However, it is the efficacy and the variety of active substances available for crop protection that have the greatest bearing on resistance.

Reversing negative trends

The strength of continued product efficacy lies not only in the characteristics of an individual product, but also in the range of products formulated to treat a common threat; therefore the pesticide market should continue to offer:

• A high standard of efficacy in all products, and
• A suitable diversity of pesticide classes per target pest species.

Renewed European regulations continue to ensure that all crop protection products that reach the market are of high standard and are suitably effective; however, the short term effect of the 2011 implemented Directive 1107/2009 is to reduce the diversity of products on the market, this leaves European agriculture increasingly vulnerable to resistance.

Wheat

Looking at the importance of the azole class of fungicides, ADAS, a UK environmental consultancy has published a report projecting their impact on wheat yields.

Triazoles (of the azole fungicide class) are the most effective defence for wheat against Septoria tritici, a fungal leaf blotch disease that presents the most significant threat to wheat crops.

The ADAS study highlights the role that innovation has played in ensuring the availability of safe and efficient crop protection products in cereal production. Triazoles were in fact developed as a defence against leaf blotch because Septoria tritici (and several other plant pathogens) developed resistance to fungicides of the strobilurin class. The study shows an estimated yield loss without triazoles of 8.7%, 6.8% and 5.0% in France, UK and Denmark respectively. The overall yield impact in Europe is initially projected to be over 7% – an amount that will increase over time as Septoria tritici develops resistance to the fewer crop protection solutions available. Losses in the region of 5-9% may be considered minor and little cause for concern; however, Losses of 50% have been reported in severely affected crops.

Europe is a leading grain producer, with wheat being the crop with by far the highest production in Europe. In 2007, wheat accounted for 46 % of cereal production in the EU. It is also one of Europe’s most widely distributed crops; in fact, only five regions do not produce wheat, namely Principado de Asturias in Spain, Valle d’Aosta/Vallée d’Aoste, Provincia Autonoma Bolzano/Bozen in Italy and Mellersta Norrland and Övre Norrland in Sweden. Wheat losses can impact the agricultural economy of almost the entire of Europe.

The ADAS report projects the triazole ban to cost the UK, France and Denmark approximately 500 million Euro per year in wheat crop losses. This is not an insignificant dent in the agricultural economy, and only considers the impact of losing one product class on one crop type in only three of the EU’s 27 wheat producing Member States.

Poor crops mean poor harvests; poor harvests mean high priced food. The cost of pesticide resistance will ultimately be paid by the consumer.

Challenge for industry, challenge for policy

Whilst the short to medium-term impacts of the loss of triazoles are a cause for concern, the challenge is clear for industry and for future European policy; innovate or suffer the economic, health and environmental problems associated with inadequate pest management.

The crop protection industry must work to develop new safe solutions to resistance, and ensure that a broad range of products are available for specific pest threats, whilst Europe needs to recognise the importance of research and development and back a regulatory framework that promotes innovation.

If we don’t invest in research and development and if politicians lose faith in science, we can expect more news of super mice, we can expect malaria to be with us for a long time to come, we can expect to suffer severe crop losses, and we can expect to be paying a lot more for our food.

One last thing

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a good practice approach to crop protection. IPM is an integrated strategy for crop management, designed to solve ecological problems when applied in agriculture. Performed in three main stages: prevention, observation, and intervention, IPM combines pesticide use with biological and sophisticated management techniques to manage pest populations in an ecological way. IPM can be used by both conventional and organic agriculture.

The use and rotation of a combination of biological and chemical protection methods means that IPM has potential to limit or delay the onset of resistance. Head over to ‘Organic, Pesticides and Integrated Pest Management’  – an earlier blog post dedicated to the subject of IPM.

“Organic production contributes to a high level of biodiversity and the preservation of species and natural habitats.”

A misleading statement, and part of the European Commission’s official organic campaign. Organic production can in fact lead to the destruction of natural habitats; and a loss of habitats will usually result in a loss of species.

The ‘preservation of natural habitats’ is a common claim made in favour of organic agriculture; it is an argument put forward by organic enthusiasts who misunderstand the relationship between agriculture* and the European ‘natural’ environment.

Let’s firstly consider the fact that Europe has little in the way of ‘natural habitat’; centuries of extensive land use (mainly farming) have created a patchwork of cultural landscapes – a rich and diverse collection of habitats and species that we call the ‘countryside’. Many of Europe’s natural habitats are the direct or indirect result of human intervention – most notably – agricultural practices. Europe is essentially a very large – in places intensively managed – garden. When we venture outside of our urban spaces into the ‘countryside’, we are not entering ‘wilderness’ or ‘virgin territory’, what we see is diverse, beautiful and ‘natural’, but very much of our design.

The most serious threat to nature (without exception) is land use change that results in the loss of natural areas and precious habitats.

Biodiversity needs space to survive, areas for habitats that support the wildlife upon which agriculture relies. Europe uses around 40% of its land for agriculture, so it is not surprising that demand for agricultural land is cited as the single biggest contributor to biodiversity loss in Europe.

If the biggest threat to biodiversity is the loss of habitats to agricultural land, then perhaps the key focus for biodiversity conservation should be to support the implementation of modern agricultural practices that maximise output on the existing agricultural land base – in other words, to adopt farming practices that reduce the need for expanding farmland in to natural areas.

Fact: inefficient farming practices require more land to produce the same yield.
Fact: crop protection products (pesticides) improve crop yield per land area.

Pesticides can be harmful to biodiversity if overused or misused; but, they also provide a means to save biodiversity by making better use of existing agricultural land and therefore avoiding continued loss of natural habitats.

As populations continue to grow, demand for food rises, and so too do concerns about food security. Pesticides and other agricultural technologies offer solutions for sustainable agriculture and provide means for us to ‘produce more, with less’. A trait of timely importance as today farmers are required to increase productivity and at the same time protect nature and biodiversity, all whilst making more efficient use of natural resources.

This is an incredible challenge, and whilst modern agricultural practices offer solutions, political and cultural barriers can inhibit progress. The tendency for certain political or interest group campaigns to uphold organic agriculture as the ‘green’ way, or the answer to our biodiversity conservation problems, is essentially counterproductive. Organic agriculture is an important facet of a necessarily diverse array of agricultural practices, but it is too hungry for land to be the only solution to halting the loss of biodiversity.

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*This is the second in a series of posts we’ll be making, examining the misleading nature of parts of the EC’s organic campaign. We examine the campaign with crop production in mind – livestock and other agriculture is not considered.

There is a belief that in comparison to conventional agriculture organic is always better; that it’s friendlier to the environment, that the food that it produces is healthier and safer.

The problem with the argument that organic agriculture is better than conventional farming is that it very often is unsupported by sound scientific proof – it is also an unfounded generalisation. Perpetuating ‘organic myths’ with slogans and clichés designed to inspire confidence is not difficult and that’s why we need to cast a critical eye over some of these messages and enter the debate with data, sound scientific evidence and a bit of common sense.

The European Commission has joined the discussion on organic farming vs. conventional by sponsoring the “Good for nature, good for you campaign” and promoting it with several ‘key messages’. My absolute favourite -“Organic farming. Wickedly good” is too ambiguous to analyse – what does this even mean? Fortunately several of the organic campaign slogans can be understood – let’s take a look at a couple of them.

Green label – red light

The first EC slogan I would like to address is: ”organic products meet consumer demand for authentic, high quality and tasty food”.

Misleading! All food must meet the same inspection and fulfil the same food safety standards before being placed on the market, both conventionally produced as well as organically. You need to know that the organic label does not indicate whether the product is actually of a higher quality, it merely indicates the style of production. With adherence to European legislation all food that reaches supermarket shelves is safe and of high quality. Where taste is concerned, claims that organic produce tastes better are false. The benefits of organic consumption are controversial and there are simply not enough facts to confirm those claims.

In fact current scientific evidence shows that organic food isn’t any safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced goods. Dr Alan Dangour in his recent study revealed that only some out of 162 studies that were included in his analysis didn’t show any distinction between organic and conventionally products. Most of those differences were marginal and as he explained it was mainly due to ripeness of harvest. This variable has little to do with the farming. These studies prove that ‘organics products being more real are not very realistic. The statement is misleading with its claims that only organic food is tastier and better, when evidence shows that conventionally produced goods are no different.

In label we trust

The second slogan is: “organic labeling offers consumers’ confidence that their goods are produced under controlled organic standards”.

Before labelling this label, let’s consider, in the first place, the main purpose of product labelling. EU legislation on food labelling has three main aims. The first is to protect the consumer from buying products which might not be good for his or health; the second is to enhance free movement of food products; the third is to inform and thereby enable well-versed choices.

Now the statement of the Commission does not in itself constitute a misleading claim. Organic labelling denotes adherence to organic standards. That is, at first glance, pretty straightforward. But to see the political baggage loaded onto that sentence one must concentrate on the key association which is being made here: that between organic labelling and consumer confidence. In essence the hidden message is that organic labelling elicits confidence. But surely all labelling – if done correctly – must elicit consumer confidence!

Generally speaking, it may have been better to say that: “labelling offers consumers confidence that their goods are produced under controlled standards.” The campaign statement emphasises the confidence generated by organic labelling, and in doing so shows us its hand.

Organic and conventional foods both have to meet the same legal food safety requirements and in both cases the label informs consumers on the product ingredients. Unfortunately the fact that the vast majority of consumers don’t understand what organic standards mean has created a loophole which can be exploited.

Studies show that when the average shopper is asked about his or her understanding of “organic” he or she immediately answers – “more expensive and chemical free“. The first part of the response is correct – organic is more expensive. But “chemical free”? Not quite. The truth is that organic food is produced with restricted use of fertilizers and pesticides. And even one of the strongest voices of the organic industry – the Soil Association – has admitted that “without pesticides” was amended to “minimal means with minimal dose”.

In conclusion, labels elicit trust. If that trust is abused what we get is manipulation; not information.

Don’t judge food by its label

On another note we trust labels and it often can mislead us. We assume that the professor with wavy grey hair is a serious scientist. We believe that the smartly dressed woman is a successful professional. We trust that the organic label is healthier than any other brand on supermarket shelves. The tendency to unconsciously link positive attributes to sexy stereotypes influences our every day choices.

It is on the basis of such human behaviour that Cornell University researcher Jenny Wan-Chen Lee tested the effects of labeling on consumer perceptions. This is the health halo effect speaking. Lee gave the experiments participants’ yoghurts, chocolate and potato chips fixing organic labels onto half of the products – the other half had regular labels. Yet what the participants were not aware of was the fact that all of the products were organic produce. At the end of the experiment participants were asked about their preferences.

The majority of participants preferred the products with the organic label. Explanations for their choices included claims that the food was lower in calories, higher in nutritional value and containing more fiber; of course this was neither true nor verifiable with only a taste-test. The experiment successfully exposed the power of ‘organic suggestion’.

New scientific research suggests that pesticides have a lesser effect on bees than first thought. The debate took to the airwaves last week on BBC’s Radio 4, here’s the full transcript…

Charlotte Smith (Farming Today, BBC Radio 4): Insecticides may not be as bad for bees as previously thought, according to the American researcher who’d linked bee deaths with a type of insecticide, neonicitinoids. Dr Jeff Pettis from the US Agricultural Research Service now says the chemicals don’t appear to have as big an effect on bee health as he first thought. In the US honey bee numbers have fallen by a third and here too there’s been a decline in the bee population. Well as we’ll hear in a moment environmentalists and the pesticide industry disagree on the safety of neonicitinoid insecticides which are applied to seeds and so are taken up by the growing plant…

Dr Pettis first made the link between these chemicals and bee deaths after lab tests.

Dr Jeff Pettis (US Agricultural Research Service): In the lab it seemed clear there was this interaction between very low levels of one of the neonicitinoids and the pathogen. The pathogen went up when they were exposed. Surprisingly though when we went back to those colonies in the field and we had a number of replicates, ten replicate colonies of each one, and we looked at those colonies over time, ‘cause we continued to feed them the pesticide in the field, we didn’t see any change in nosema levels.

CS: So can we conclude that neonicitinoids are safe for bees?

JP: They’re safer than some of the older chemistries certainly. There’s one, one caveat to are they safer, they actually move systemically in the plant so plants, they can either treat the seed or you can treat the soil, the plant will take this up, the bees could be exposed in their pollen and nectar.

CS: Is it really that we don’t know enough about the effects of these insecticides so perhaps there’s an argument for applying the precautionary principle when it comes to using them on farms?

JP: The bulk of evidence over the past ten years in, in a variety of crops has been that bees in some cases are doing better next to crops that used to have other heavy pesticide use.

CS: Knowing what you know would you use a neonicitinoid insecticide?

JP: I might use it in place of a conventional, more conventional one that I know has higher toxicity. So in that sense yes, I think the, the prudent approach is to try to produce food using the, the best methods available. These compounds, they have replaced these more harsh chemicals that were really detrimental to bees, so it really is a balancing act.
I’m doing the research because I’m concerned, I’m highly concerned about pollinator health. But right now I think the balance has to tip in, in favour of their continued use in agriculture, mainly just because of the food production demands that we’re under.

CS: This is though something of a U turn on your original findings which linked neonicitinoids to damaging bee health.

JP: When I was asked about them a few years ago I was surprised by the level of response in, in the lab at very low levels. And with a bit of time in looking back at the colonies as a whole in the field and not seeing the same response, which I definitely would have predicted from the lab studies, it meant that things just aren’t as simple as sometimes they appear.

CS: So from your own research do you conclude that it is a good idea to use neonicitinoids or not?

JP: In light of the evidence that I have to date I would say their use on certain crops is still justified. I think we have to look almost crop by crop. I really can’t give a yes or no answer. It’s, it’s a gradient.

CS: Dr Jeff Pettis from the US Agricultural Research Service.

Listening to that are Matt Shardlow from Buglife, the invertebrate conservation trust, and Dr Julian Little who’s from Bayer Cropscience.

So Matt Shardlow this is all a balancing act.

Matt Shardlow (Buglife): One of the difficulties here is a scientific difference in how easy it is to do lab work and how easy it is to do field work and there’s an awful amount of evidence showing a range of effects in lab work where bees that are exposed to really tiny quantities of neonicitinoids, smaller than they would encounter in the field in pollen and nectar are, are massively impacted in terms of their health. The difficulty with field studies is that it’s much harder to get the information and to control the condition so that your results are scientifically valid. And Jeff Pettis’s …

Dr Julian Little (Bayer Cropscience): But that’s the reason why you have to do those field studies, because if we were just to take laboratory studies as Dr Pettis said earlier, if we’d have just taken the responses from the labs then we wouldn’t have insecticides out there. It’s not surprising in the end that insects …

MS: Julian if I could just finish, as I, as I, Julian …

JL: … are affected by an insecticide (indistinct).

CS: Dr Little you’ve, you’ve made your point, let Matt Shardlow finish his.

MS: So a lot of the studies haven’t been published, they haven’t been peer reviewed. They’re often done over two days and they’re not going to show chronic effects. The work that has been published has now been scientifically reviewed by James Cresswell of Exeter University and he found that even the published work wasn’t able statistically to show the impacts that you would predict from the lab work. And we also have to consider that some of the invertebrates that we’re looking at, for instance moths and butterflies which are also pollinating insects, are orders of magnitude more sensitive to these chemicals than the bees are.

CS: But what Dr Pettis made very clear is that there is no clear yes or no answer here. It’s shades of balancing. So given that we have to feed an increasing number of people don’t we have to just accept that we manage this risk and get on with it?

MS: Well I think those are very similar arguments to the arguments that were used just a few decades ago about DDT aren’t they, you know? And it does take a bit of time for the science to come about through independent means that shows the impacts are big on wildlife and on pollinators. Only yesterday we revealed that in the UK the numbers of incidents involving mass bee deaths from neonicitinoids is on the rise. It’s gone up from nought per cent in 2008 …

Dr Julian Little: No that’s (indistinct) clearly not true and …

MS: … to twenty seven per cent last year in 2010. And when we …

CS: But that’s tiny figures you’re talking there, isn’t it? You’re talking about fifteen incidents altogether and maybe three or four of them might be linked to neonicitinoids.

JL: The idea of saying neonicitinoids, you know, if we were to suspend their use we’d see a big improvement, well that was tried in France for nearly ten years. The result, no improvement whatsoever in bee health.

CS: I’m going to have to bring this discussion to a close. Dr Little do you have any concerns that you are taking risks with something we don’t fully understand yet ‘cause we haven’t given it enough time?

JL: What’s really interesting is that all of the work that’s being done in the field suggests that if used appropriately these products do not pose a risk to insects, important insects such as the honey bee.

CS: Matt Shardlow?

Matt Shardlow: When we put together the Buglife report in 2009 summarising the evidence Bayer and others in the agriculture industry were very keen to point out that there weren’t any mass deaths of bees as a result of these neonicitinoids, but we found out that there are. So you’ve got this accumulation of laboratory studies, very, very weak field studies that aren’t conclusive and then the incoming of new information about increasing bee deaths being reported through the Government. So we think there’s a picture here of, of a chemical where the evidence is building and building that these are causing a damage to the environment and to pollinators.

CS: Matt Shardlow from Buglife and Dr Julian Little from Bayer Cropscience in a rather echoey meeting room, apologies for that. It’s a subject I’m sure we’ll be coming back to.

Their tiny size and underground existence keeps them out of sight and out of mind; their other-worldly appearance, their crawling, squirming, gnawing, conspire to render them unattractive; but what they lack in beauty, they make up for in numbers and worth. The mites, lice and bacteria that inhabit the world beneath our feet are vital for maintaining balanced ecosystems and agricultural production – quite simply, we could not live without them.

Soil biodiversity is a fascinating subject, but one that is frequently (and literally) over-looked. We ignore the services provided by soil biodiversity at our peril – responsible for more than US $760 billion a year in ecosystem services, soil biodiversity deserves our full attention.

When setting foot on soil, most people are unaware that they stand on trillions of organisms, an amazingly diverse community of plants, animals and microbes. Check out this photo- and fact-packed publication on soil biodiversity and agriculture…

There’s a summary version, for lighter reading…

On behalf of our yellow and black striped friends, the European press has rolled up a copy of the evening edition to take a swat at the agrochemical industry. Unfortunately for bees, chasing pesticides around the room with a newspaper is not the answer.

There’s growing concern about bees. For one reason or the other bees seem to be suffering. On both sides of the Atlantic there are numerous reports of honey bee colonies ‘collapsing’ due to the mysterious death of most of a hive’s population. This phenomenon has been referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Scientific agreement

In spite of the volume of recent press suggesting pesticides are responsible for CCD, there is, in fact, a consensus amongst the scientific community that there are several culprits, none of which is singularly responsible for the as yet unexplained incidents of colony collapse.

The usual suspects include beekeeping and husbandry practices (how bees are feed, transported, medicated), environmental factors (climate, biodiversity), chemical factors (such as pesticides) and biological agents (Varroa, Nosema, and other parasites and diseases). Scientists believe it is possible that these factors together create stress and weaken bees’ defence systems allowing pests and pathogens to kill the colony (e.g. one or several parasites, viruses, etc.).

Regulated

Of all the bee-killing suspects lined up by scientists, pesticides can claim to be the most studied, scrutinised and regulated. There’s a whole raft of European and national controls on pesticide approval – these ensure that when approved products are used as directed, there should be no adverse effects on bee health or populations.

At the European level, the key legislation goes by the catchy title ‘Directive 91/414/EEC of 15 July 1991 concerning the placing of plant protective products on the market’. If you’ve run out of paint to watch dry, you can read the full text of Directive 91/414 here and in amongst the pages you can find a frequent mention of bees and what should and should not occur with them in relation to pesticide product registration, labeling, and use.

If you are looking for some practical guidance on bees and the use of insecticides, the UK Crop Protection Association’s booklet ‘Bee-Safe Bee-Careful; when using insecticides’  (pdf) is a good place to start. It is produced with support from the British Bee Keepers Association (BBKA) and the National Farmers Union (NFU).

Media waggle dance

While running in circles works for bees we humans just find ourselves right back where we started. Singling out one potential cause of CCD fails to address the entirety of the problem, and this failure is the real danger to bees. The ‘bees and pesticides’ story makes good copy for editors on slow news days, but it misses the point (over and over again).

Bees and other pollinators are essential for agriculture; they are an important part of the process of growing much of the food that we eat. This is a fact known first and best by the agricultural industry; the media at large often overlook this, giving the voice of the bees to ‘greens’ and activist groups. Conservation organisations consider bees to be environmental ‘indicators’ – the agricultural industry thinks of bees as ‘partners’, with staggering economic value. In the UK alone, bees are said to be worth around £200 million per year to the agriculture industry.

So, note to editor: the agriculture industry has a lot of love for bees.

The Biodiversity World Tour is a global campaign to engage citizens from around the world in a discussion on how agriculture can protect and preserve our natural resources.

Travelling across three continents, the World Tour will engage audiences in a worldwide discussion about biodiversity and agriculture with farmers, agricultural experts, researchers, and policymakers. You can join the tour in Iowa, Belgium, and Japan for virtual Town Halls featuring farmers, agricultural experts, and policy makers as they share their thoughts about the role agriculture can play in supporting biodiversity. These Town Hall gatherings will be broadcast live via the Web with panels taking questions through Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail.

There’s no need go into more detail here, check the Biodiversity World Tour website for full details, mark the dates in your agenda, and have your say on this important topic from the comfort of… well, wherever you are!

Pesticides are used to kill the bugs and diseases that destroy agricultural crops. These bugs and diseases are part of ‘biodiversity’, the variety that exists between life forms. Paradoxically agriculture needs biodiversity – relies on it in fact. Biodiversity pollinates plants, it purifies water, prevents soil erosion, it even helps control the climate through the sequestration of carbon dioxide. Without biodiversity there would be no agriculture, but left to the mercy of biological diversity, and the hard knocks rule of survival of the fittest (Darwin’s ‘natural selection’) we would struggle to feed ourselves – pests and plant diseases taking food from our mouths.

Lost

By controlling the impacts of pests and diseases pesticides allow us to maximise agricultural productivity and ensure food supply meets the demand of a rapidly growing population. As much as 40-80% of crop yields can be lost to pests and disease – this is the reality of pesticide free agriculture. Organic farming might be considered proof that an alternative to pesticides exist, but in reality organic crops are also protected with pesticides – without them yield loss is too great.

Plant more

If we want to farm pesticide free, but still produce the required quantities of food, we simply have to plant more crops to compensate for expected losses. If we want ten potatoes, we will have to plant 20 because we anticipate pests and disease will claim up to half of them. This approach could theoretically rid us of the need to use pesticides, but at what cost?
 

Space, the final frontier – not least for biodiversity

Biodiversity needs space to survive, areas for habitats that support the wildlife upon which agriculture relies. Europe uses around 40% of its land for agriculture, so it is not surprising that demand for agricultural land is cited as the single biggest contributor to biodiversity loss in Europe.

If the biggest threat to biodiversity is the loss of habitats to agricultural land, then perhaps the key focus for biodiversity conservation should be to support the implementation of modern agricultural practices that maximise output on the existing agricultural land base. Fact: inefficient farming practices require more land to produce the same yield.

Save biodiversity

So we return to the paradox of pesticide use. Pesticides can be harmful to biodiversity, but they also provide a means to save biodiversity by making best use of existing agricultural land and avoiding continued loss of natural habitats.

As populations continue to grow, demand for food rises, and so do concerns about food security. Today, farmers are required to increase productivity and at the same time protect nature and biodiversity to ensure we have continued means to feed ourselves.

Pesticides are frequently cited by environmental groups as something nature and biodiversity could do without – but is the opposite true – could modern agricultural practices be the savior of biodiversity?

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One last thing…

It is important to note that the presence of agriculture does not always result in less biodiversity – in many cases the opposite is true, for example, land abandonment of extensive farmland in Central and Eastern Europe has resulted in a regional loss of biodiversity.

In ‘Food for Thought: Organic Grub Worth Buying?’ we hear that as US organic sales increase, so do consumer questions about what ‘organic‘ actually means. Answers to this same question in the UK met with surprise early this year, as a report explained that organic does not mean ‘pesticide free’ – perhaps as shocking to some as an earlier report published by the UK Food Standards Agency, claiming that organic food ‘has no health benefits‘ over conventionally grown produce. Essentially this is good news for the consumer – you can receive the same health benefits from conventionally grown (and mostly cheaper) fruits and vegetables.

 

Organic pesticides

It is true that organic farmers, faced with the loss of their crops, often use ‘conventional’ pesticides, but there are more tools in the organic farmers toolbox, so called ‘organic’ pesticides (sometimes referred to as ‘green’ or ‘ecological’ pesticides). Organic pesticides are claimed to be naturally derived rather than synthetically produced, but this does not tell us anything about their relative safety or impact on the environment. We must also remind ourselves that the most toxic substances known are found in nature: in other words, natural does not always equal safe. Steve Savage, who keeps a blog at eatdrinkbetter.com last week posted ‘The “Pesticide From Hell” (oh, by the the way, its “Organic”)‘, an interesting article on one the oldest and still most used ‘organic’ pesticides – Sulphur (sulfur). Steve points out that sulphur compounds must be used in considerably higher quantities than effective and highly targeted ‘manufactured’ crop protection products; in addition to being one of the most common causes of pesticide user health complaints, there is also an association with bird mortality. Copper sulphate, another commonly use organic pesticide, combines copper and sulphur in a form that is permanently destructive of soil if overused. In terms of the regulation of use of crop protection measures, in the European Union organic pesticides are subject to the same strict regulations as conventional products.
 

Overlooked

The fact that organic farming often makes use of pesticides (of the organic and conventional varieties) is largely overlooked or poorly communicated – reinforcing misconceptions about crop production and crop protection. Recent media coverage of organic agriculture does suggest that the public is beginning to question their understanding of the term ‘organic’. The current economic crisis will have no doubt contributed; with less disposable income it is perhaps no surprise that consumers pass on some of the more expensive items on their shopping list. Rightly or wrongly, organic is often considered something of a ‘niche market’ – with products being more expensive than their conventionally grown alternatives they are unlikely to feature in a ‘recession diet‘.
 

Unsustainable

The reality of agriculture is that pests must be managed to avoid devastating loss to crops, something independent of the ideology of farmer or consumer. Whilst some loss is indeed expected, without crop protection measures a loss of over 40% yield is possible – this is unsustainable.
 

An ecological way

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a good practice approach to crop protection. IPM is an integrated strategy for crop management, designed to solve ecological problems when applied in agriculture. Performed in three main stages: prevention, observation, and intervention IPM combines pesticide use with biological and sophisticated management techniques to manage pest populations in an ecological way. IPM can be used by both conventional and organic agriculture.

In the video below, Professor Sir Gordon Conway of the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, explains Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and how it helps farmers. He goes on to tell us how pesticides can be used in conjunction with natural enemy controls, such as parasites and other predators, to help protect farmers’ crops from losses.