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Ecological illiteracy can deepen farmers’ pesticide dependency

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.

Title of publication: Environmental research letters
Volume: 14 (2019)
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Year: 2019
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Content language: English
Author: K A G Wyckhuys, K L Heong , F Sanchez-Bayo , F J J A Bianchi , J G Lundgren and J W Bentley ,
Type: Journal article
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