cultivar_22_Final_EN

Sustainable Intensification: a new technological model in agriculture 19 poisoning of food chains, declining aquifers and river flows, and massive emissions of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, it has also fre- quently brought higher costs, lower food quality and secu- rity, lower competitiveness and greater vulnerability as we approach the end of the era of cheap energy. Consequently, the new tech- nological model must focus on decoupling as much as possible the rise in production per hectare from the amount of industrial inputs used per hectare. This change of tack will lead us to an agriculture which is simultaneously more competitive, more environ- ment-friendly and more resil- ient to growing water scarcity and rising energy prices. The change may take the form of a tech model alternative to the chemical-mechanical version called “sustainable intensifi- cation” (Royal Society 2009). The degree to which we will be able to decouple pro- duction per hectare from inputs per hectare in the future is not yet very clear. There are certainly limits to this tech strategy of producing more with less and therefore reducing trade-offs between the environ- ment and the economy while increasing output per hectare. These limits are more evident in the short term and are above all due to so-called technolog- ical lock-ins (the clearest evidence of the existence of tech models). For example, the full genetic poten- tial of the plant varieties used in agriculture today depends on simple, less competitive agroecosys- tems but also with lower involvement of predators and parasitoids, and therefore with greater need for pesticides. It also depends on high levels of nutrients in the soil and therefore abundant fertilisation. This example illustrates the “resistance” of the current tech model: techniques cannot be changed one by one; the shift requires the emergence of a new tech model alternative to the current one in which new techniques – based on certain fields of knowledge often side-lined by the current model – interlink with others in response to new needs and challenges. There are at least two strate- gic transition paths to a new tech model in agriculture that we can foresee today and that may decouple growth in output per hectare from input levels per hectare. The first is based on raising input use efficiency by applying them with greater precision in time and space – which is generally referred to as “preci- sion farming”, because it also includes new irrigation methods and other technologies, such as integrated protection and the sustainable use of pesticides. The second (which is not necessarily an alternative to the first one) is based on copying and using ecolog- ical processes – predation, parasitism and disease, symbiotic nitrogen fixation, mycorrhizae, permanent and annual crop combinations, such as agroforestry sys- tems – to replace purchased industrial inputs (pesti- cides, fertilisers and energy). Techniques can be designed to harness these two paths. For example, in integrated production, the use of “cost-effective levels of attack” as a criterion for making pesticide treatments replaces “calendar” treatments (i.e. applied regardless of level of attack) characteristic of the chemical-mechanical model. Cost-effective levels of attack imply only applying treatments when the pest attack level is predicted to exceed the cost of the treatment in terms of lost production. This method allows higher pesticide input efficiency, through more careful application (first path), and, as it is less harmful to auxiliary pop- ulations of predators and parasitoids (often more vulnerable to the pesticide than the pest), enhances ecological processes which freely perform the same work as the pesticide – therefore also providing eco- logical replacements for inputs (second path). There are at least two strategic transition paths to a new tech model in agriculture… The first is based on raising input use efficiency by applying them with greater precision in time and space – which is generally referred to as “precision farming” … The second (which is not necessarily an alternative to the first one) is based on copying and using ecological processes… to replace purchased industrial inputs.