Crop protection and its integration within sustainable farming systems

Abstract

This paper summarises the key issues raised at a recent international conference entitled, ‘Integrated Crop Protection: Towards Sustainability?’ The British Crop Protection Council in association with the Sustainable Farming Systems initiative — a joint enterprise between the Scottish Agricultural College and the University of Edinburgh — organised during 1995 an international conference to address state-of-the-art studies in the theory and practice of weed, pest and disease management by integrated approaches. The conference also explored the contribution which sustainable farming systems research can make to mainstream agriculture. The major recurring themes were: (i) are current crop protection practices sustainable?; (ii) the concept of sustainability; (iii) the biological roots of sustainability; (iv) anticipated developments in crop protection and sustainability; (v) food production and sustainability; (vi) experimentation on sustainable farming systems; and, finally, (vii) are integrated crop protection practices moving towards an increased sustainability? The key issues raised in theme (i) were: crop protection is of critical importance to all food production systems; and the way we protect our crops today has significant implications for future generations; theme (ii): the concept of degrees of sustainability, i.e. sustainability not as an absolute concept but with the potential for systems to be more or less sustainable; theme (iii): the essential nature of developing holistic knowledge of systems, and not simply by discipline only; theme (iv): the development of decision support technology, transgenic plants and semiochemicals as tools in future crop protection strategies; theme (v): the need for continued government funding to meet the twin, and often conflicting, demands of food production and sustainability; and themes (vi) and (vii): more emphasis must be given to systems experimentation and to technology transfer, respectively.