Pest management science often disregards farming system complexities

Since the 1940s, pesticide-intensive crop protection has sustained food security but also caused pervasive impacts on biodiversity, environmental integrity and human health. Here, we employ a systematic literature review to structurally analyze pest management science in 65 developing countries. Within a corpus of 3,407 publications, we find that taxonomic coverage is skewed towards a subset of 48 herbivores. Simplified contexts are commonplace: 48% of studies are performed within laboratory confines. 80% treat management tactics in an isolated rather than integrated fashion. 83% consider no more than two out of 15 farming system variables. Limited attention is devoted to pest-pathogen or pest-pollinator interplay, trophic interactions across ecosystem compartments or natural pest regulation. By overlooking social strata, the sizable scientific progress on agroecological management translates into slow farm-level uptake. We argue that the scientific enterprise should integrate system complexity to chart sustainable trajectories for global agriculture and achieve transformative change on the ground.

Kris A. G. Wyckhuys, Fiona H. M. Tang, Buyung A. R. Hadi