Are we falling into the trap set up by anti-pesticide lobby by advocating agro-ecosystem analysis (AESA)-based approach for pest management?

Sometime back, I commented upon the zero budget natural farming that lets crops grow naturally with least material intervention, more particularly bereft of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. The advocates of organic farming or natural farming believe that nature balances itself over the period of time and produces enough for its inhabitants. They do recommend the decoctions of urine, cow dung, fermented products that include extracts of plants that grow in wild, plant extracts per se, often in-edible for human consumption. Unfortunately, these products have never been tested for their safety to humans and animals, nor their impact on environment talked about. Being natural, these are assumed to be safe. Of late, these products are pushed under the pretext of agro-ecological engineering or agro-ecology as a basis of crop pest management.

It is well known that agro-ecology is a basis of farming, and crop resilience has limits of growth if ecological parameters are stretched far and wide. For example, it is difficult to cultivate wheat in summer or monsoon season. At the same time, sowing of wheat has a limited window of timing in winter. By stretching too before or after window, you may be able to control infestation of pests to some extent, but its cost may be downward revision of produce or else, it may not be practical. Thus for e.g. in mustard, by early sowing, mustard escapes aphid attack in Feb-March in the North India. But early sowing will not be possible for all farmers in the region or everywhere. Moreover, pest incidence varies a lot, and manipulating agronomy and thereby its agro-ecology using mixed cropping or crop rotation may have beneficial effects for pest management and crop sustainability, but within limits. And hence, other tactics like pesticides come handy and remains a reliable method of controlling pests during contingencies.

The anti-pesticide lobby is using a pretext of agro-ecology or agro-ecological engineering to ban pesticides. It lists contamination of environment and health hazards as chief reasons and advocates agro-ecology or agro-ecological engineering as a solution. This may have origin in the advocacy of agro-ecosystem analysis (AESA) by FAO in 2004 (http://www.fao.org/agroecology/database/detail/en/c/892340/). In good faith, FAO advocated and defined agro-ecology as the scientific discipline that seeks to provide an objective, ecologically based assessment of the structure, function multidimensionality and special scale of food systems. It finds this science quite complex. The AESA-based Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a part of food systems to reduce crop losses due to pests, still retains complexity, as it is based upon various components like soil conditions, climatic factors, plant health at different times during its growth, pest-defenders’ population dynamics, plant compensating mechanisms and farmers’ experience. These components, being so verbose and descriptive, provide for large margins that will cripple decision making with respect to direct interventions (see AESA based IPM approach documents at https://niphm.gov.in/IPMPackages.html).

And this AESA-based IPM is being advocated in place of economic threshold level (ETL)-based IPM. Of course, AESA-based approach does not bring in sea-change in IPM practice as it lacks quantitative grading and swiftness of decision making that is required especially for control of pest insects and diseases which multiply rapidly.

Does that mean that ETL-based IPM advocates does not bother about ecology? Not true. FAO comprehensively defined IPM as an ecosystem approach to crop production and protection that combines different management strategies and practices to grow healthy crops and minimize the use of pesticides. IPM is an approach-based method for analysis of the agro-ecosystem and the management of its different elements to control pests and keep them at an acceptable level (action threshold) with respect to the economic, health and environmental requirements (http://www.fao.org/agriculture/crops/thematic-sitemap/theme/spi/scpi-home/managing-ecosystems/integrated-pest-management/en/). Thus, IPM does take into consideration ecology, but does not depend upon it to act. ETL-based IPM is proactive measure rather than retrograde AESA-based IPM.

An ETL is an important quantitative parameter that cascade into IPM action. It is based upon the number of pest species, their pest counts and/or amount of plant damage, which is turn a result of interactions between pest, pest’s natural enemies and plant in the congeniality of the environment. The higher plant damage or higher number of pest incidence resulting into loss of produce than the control costs in the context of environment and social acceptability is variable, but quantifiable and hence used as threshold for action. There is no counterpart of ETL in the AESA-based IPM.

Let us put it simply for a case. Brinjal shoot and fruit borer is a major pest of brinjal. The use of insecticides for its control is rampant. However, insecticide use declines when produce does not get good price, no matter BSFB is causing a lot of damage. Thus, ETL levels vary depending up on the prices of brinjal in the market, likelihood of loss of produce at the given infestation or damage level and cost of undertaking control tactics. ETL based pesticide use can be optimised with monitoring of BSFB adult population with pheromone traps as it is convenient.  Further, consumer awareness in respect of environment and social acceptability will decide the marketability and prices. Thus, decision making is quite straight forward in ETL-based IPM and does not involve merry-goes-round that AESA-based IPM will have it.

Now the question arises as to whom are we playing this tune of AESA-based IPM? For the people who believe in organics only; those who can afford to pay many more times than the produce grown with ETL-based IPM! Of course, higher prices of organic food not only accounts for expected quality in terms no-pesticide residues, but also infested produce that farmers discard. Thus, there is loss of produce due to pest damage, which could otherwise have been saved. Above all, the consumers also risk an encounter with microbes that the organic produce may harbour, and to which they are not accustomed to.

The next question is “Isn’t IPM as defined by FAO, same as AESA-based IPM advocacy of recent years?  Yes, but with a large verbose advocacy of ecology and ecological engineering, gullible farmers may be enticed with new paradigm of IPM and may risk crop sustainability. Time and again, IPM advocacy is aimed at reducing pesticide use, lowering the pest incidence to the manageable thresholds, with environmental integrity and safety and social acceptability. And that FAO Panel of experts in 1975 makes it clear in its definitiion. as “pest management system that in the context of associated environment and population dynamics of pest species utilizes all suitable techniques and methods in as compatible a manner as possible and maintains the pest population at levels below those causing economic injury”.

A short survey on the AESA-based IPM carried out by me showed the following results (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XDdSDNxj-C_BkPVzg6CXHrEHRPD1Y_qCbTZyeiMT_XM/edit#responses). Only 16 responded

  

Q1. Do you know AESA-based IPM?

Of 13, 77% said yes while rest did not hear about it [13 responses]

 

Q2. If yes, when did you hear of AESA-based IPM?

Of 10, most said in last 3-5 years [10 responses]

 

Q3. Has the application of AESA-based IPM resulted in pesticide reduction similar to ETL-based IPM?

About 61.5% did not know for sure, only 38.5% said yes [13 responses]

 

Q4. Did you find any other benefits of AESA-based IPM over ETL-based IPM in the specified crops?

About 50% said yes, Quite interesting, 30% said no or not sure, rest 20% said it improved better perception of environment or natural biological control [10 responses]

Q5. Is AESA-based IPM as practical as ETL-based IPM?

About 50% said yes, 25% said no and another 25% were not sure [12 responses].

The above survey was also posted on whatsapp groups, and emailed widely. Poor response also indicates that most did not know this approach and those who knew it probably were not sure of its tangible benefits despite many in this survey saying that they have better perception of environment and finding it practical. However, an  internet search did not lead to any verifiable experiments vis-à-vis ETL based IPM studies.

In conclusion, by advocating AESA-based IPM, we are giving a leeway to the anti-pesticide lobby which handles its propaganda around agro-ecology in the simple terms to drill fantasies in the minds of the common man. Let us not fall in to the same trap-vicious circle of going around, which anti-pesticide lobby is using in the name of agroecological engineering, like its anti-GMO brethren.