Reconciling pesticide reduction with economic and environmental sustainability in arable farming.

ABSTRACT: Reducing pesticide use is one of the high-priority targets in the quest for a sustainable agriculture. Until now, most studies dealing with pesticide use reduction have compared a limited number of experimental prototypes. Here we assessed the sustainability of 48 arable cropping systems from two major agricultural regions of France, including conventional, integrated and organic systems, with a wide range of pesticide use intensities and management (crop rotation, soil tillage, cultivars, fertilization, etc.). We assessed cropping system sustainability using a set of economic, environmental and social indicators. We failed to detect any positive correlation between pesticide use intensity and both productivity (when organic farms were excluded) and profitability. In addition, there was no

SUBMITTER: Lechenet M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4041714 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature