Biopesticides in Sustainable Agriculture
Intensive application of synthetic pesticides was the routine practice of commercial agriculture during the Green Revolution to boost agricultural productivity to meet global food demand. Alongside this, the application of chemical pesticides caused adverse effects on the environment and its coreceptors including human health. Negative externalities arising from conventional farming instigated the call for sustainable development during the sixties to promote and balance the nexus between socially acceptable economic growth and environmental protection.
Biopesticides in Sustainable Agriculture
- Biopesticides can boost global food supplies, making agriculture greener, safer and more efficient
- Innovative natural products grown with biopesticides can avoid the harmful impacts associated with synthetic pesticides.
- Currently, up to 35 % of farming yield losses are due to pests, so overcoming this problem would go a long way to boosting global food supplies.
- Since the 1930s, synthetic pesticides have been widely used to try to combat pests, but these come with a wide range of environmental, ecological and health problems. These range from skin irritations, to damage to the nervous system, along with problems with fertility and, in some rare cases, even death.
- Another promising approach lies in ‘biopesticides’, products with lower toxicity that decompose easily into the environment.
- Biopesticides are phytosanitary products that have been developed from natural compounds. As such, they are free from any substances that could cause harm to the farmer or to the final consumer.
- “In the short term, the effectiveness of biopesticides may be slightly lower than synthetic pesticides, since they do not generate such a severe shock effect. But in the medium to long term, the benefit to agricultural productivity is immense. They avoid soil degradation, respect auxiliary fauna and reduce pest resistance, unlike synthetic pesticides,” says Baeza.
- The adoption of bio-based pesticides via integrated pest management (IPM) has proven to be the most effective option to influence most dimensions of sustainable agriculture.