Sustainable pest management – positive effects across the globe?

For the first time, an international study headed by the University of Bonn, Germany, and ETH Zurich, Switzerland, has focused on the “Expected Effects of a Global Transformation of Agricultural Pest Management”. The scientists developed a holistic assessment framework covering economic, human health, food security, social and environmental effects and conducted a global survey with 517 experts from key disciplines and major agricultural production regions.The results were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

According to some estimates, more than one third of the world’s harvest would be lost to weeds, pests and diseases every year without crop protection. “On the other hand, the abundant use of synthetic pesticides can be damaging to human health and ecosystems,” emphasises Professor Niklas Möhring of the University of Bonn. Together with 13 colleagues spread across a total of six continents, Möhring has been working on one important question in this latest study. What would happen if farmers around the globe were to switch over to sustainable pest management measures?

Integrated pest management, cultivation of resistant varieties

Integrated pest management practices include, for example, the cultivation of resistant crop varieties, diverse crop rotations or planting hedges around the edges of fields in which natural predators are able to multiply. “Unfortunately, locally adapted alternative practices are often not available and will require more research,” says Möhring. “Agricultural systems also vary, and it is often not possible to transfer the results of a field study, for example in Germany, to other parts of the world.”

Therefore, there is often uncertainty about whether sustainable pest management could be successfully implemented in a particular region, or what the resulting trade-offs, for example, between environmental goals, yields and economic losses for the farmers could be. “We thus decided to interview local experts to find out what they thought the opportunities and risks associated with such a transformation would be,” says Möhring.

What do local experts think?

In total, 517 experts with an intimate knowledge of the agriculture in a specific region responded to the survey. The respondents were selected to provide a wide range of perspectives based on their expertise in different disciplines, ranging from ecology to economics or toxicology. “In this way, we wanted to obtain a balanced range of opinions about this complex question,” says Möhring.

Environmental and health benefits

The experts’ expectations did indeed vary depending on their origin and type of expertise. Overall, they expected a transformation to sustainable pest management to have a positive effect – at least in the long term. They expected particularly strong improvements at an environmental level, for example for water pollution or biodiversity. This was true irrespective of the region and discipline. It similarly applied to expected effects on human health.

However, there were big differences in the expected economic impacts. In North America, Europe and Australia, equal numbers of experts expected positive and negative impacts on the income of farmers – at least in the short term. In contrast, the experts for Asia, Africa and South America tended to believe that this transformation would also offer an economic opportunity. Furthermore, the respondents for these continents believed that the transformation would have a more positive impact on local access to safe food than the experts for North America, Europe and Australia.

Sustainability has its price

“Despite these differences, the experts were surprisingly optimistic overall,” says Möhring. “This does not mean, however, that the switch to sustainable crop protection would be for free. Nevertheless, higher short- to mid-term costs could pay off in the long term. Generally, it will be key that we support farmers during this transformation by offering them, for instance, tailored and effective alternatives for crop protection and appropriate support mechanisms.”

However, this study was only based on opinions of a range of experts, and it remains to be seen whether their forecasts are realistic. “Among other things, we will need to carry out more local studies across various regions in which we can try out sustainable pest management strategies and systematically research their effects,” Möhring explains. 

(University of Bonn/wi)

Publication:

Niklas Möhring et. al.: Expected Effects of a Global Transformation of Agricultural Pest Management; Nature Communications; DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66982-4