Ecological illiteracy can deepen farmers’ pesticide dependency

Abstract

Nearly 2.5 billion smallholders cultivate the world’s arable land, strategically positioned to tackle multiple Anthropocene challenges. When consciously adopting ecologically-based pest management practices, they can improve resource use efficiency, slow biodiversity loss, curtail environmental pollution and safeguard human health. Yet, the effective implementation of knowledge-intensive management practices requires underlying ecological concepts to be well-understood. Here, drawing upon published social science research spanning 1910–2016, we illuminate deficiencies in the world’s farmers’ ecological literacy and in their valuation of insect-mediated ecosystem services. Though tribal people and indigenous folk possess sophisticated knowledge of insects that occur within farm settings, contemporary farmers on average know a mere 1.9–2.3 pestiferous herbivores and 0.5–0.9 pest-killing organisms (out of a respective 8 and 3 taxa) in a particular crop or cropping system. Ecosystem services such as biological pest control are annually worth hundreds of dollars ha−1 but remain unknown to nearly 70% of farmers globally. Also, agricultural systems with deficient ecological literacy tend to foster a greater dependency upon chemically-synthesized pesticides. If this ‘cognitive handicap’ can be remediated, farmers could become agro-biodiversity stewards and champions in redressing multiple aspects of global environmental change.

Insect and insecticides in agricultural landscapes; socio-ecological challenges and patterns

“…Implementing biological pest control in farm management is knowledge-intensive. For example, farmers need to understand pest species biology and morphology, and consider the biological and ecological needs of natural enemies to implement biocontrol effectively (Wyckhuys et al, 2019). Furthermore, natural enemies are specific in their range of prey and slower in suppressing pest populations than pesticides.…”

“…Moreover, these decisions on pest management are mediated by regulatory considerations, extension services offered, influence of advertising and media, and the effectiveness of implementing alternative pest management options (Jepson et al, 2014). Hence, to reduce farmers' dependency upon pesticides and to lessen the associated environmental burden, a solid understanding of the socio-ecological features of pest management decision making is needed (Wyckhuys et al, 2019).…”

“…Tailored education of farmers, e.g. to fill existing agroecological knowledge gaps (Wyckhuys et al, 2019), possibly can spark on-farm experimentation and adoption of non-chemical management alternatives .…”

“…Thereby, fostering the adoption of sustainable management practices requires training, education and acceptance of new approaches by farmers, parallelled by facilitation through policymakers and regulators (EASAC, 2015;Furlan and Kreutzweiser, 2015;Dudley et al, 2017;Milner and Boyd, 2017;Sponsler et al, 2019). To facilitate 'escape & reorganization' of current neonicotinoid-based pest management, top-down regulations need to be paired with bottom-up 'farmer first' approaches of pest management (Matteson, 2000;MacMillan and Benton, 2014;Wyckhuys et al, 2019), and the active pursuit of management practices that do not involve synthetic pesticides, such as agro-ecology. Neonicotinoid use has triggered a new, globe-spanning cycle of the pesticide treadmill, yet promising and resolute steps are being taken to escape this 'lock-in'.…”

“…There are, however, growing concerns in society about the direct and indirect negative effects of pesticides on the environment and health (EASAC, 2015). Pesticides may cause harmful effects on nontarget organisms, such as bees and other beneficial insects, fish, and birds (Lamichhane et al, 2016;Wyckhuys et al, 2019), and many hidden costs are associated with pesticide use, including health care, and monitoring and sanitation of contamination of soils, drinking water, or food. The growing public concern about pesticide use has resulted in societal pressure for a transition towards more ecologically-based pest management.…”