CHEMICALS will remain the most sustainable and efficient primary tool for managing crop pests and weeds into the future, the ABARES Outlook heard last week.

Speakers argued that techniques such as targeted spraying and weed-seed collection are likely to be more effective in the immediate term when combined with traditional chemicals, rather than relying on the emerging biologicals industry.

The session, titled Resilient landscapes: tackling pests and weeds for sustainable agriculture and biodiversity, featured input from CropLife director Justin Crosby, Grains Research and Development Corporation senior manager Ken Young, Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water A/g branch head methods branch Ryan Wilson and ABARES chief biosecurity scientist Tony Arthur.

Mr Crosby said research stemming from initiatives in the European Green Deal demonstrated the counterproductive follow-on impacts to the environment from significantly reducing the use of pesticides and other chemicals in agriculture.

Approved in 2020, the EU plan features policies on pollution, biodiversity and sustainability including goals for 2030 to halve the use of pesticides, and grow organic production to 20pc of the market.

“The EU is probably leading the world in terms of removing chemistry from the system; they note that they’re going to have a productivity problem,” Mr Crosby said.

“If we were to take the Green Deal goals…EU’s food production goes down 12pc; it needs to become a net importer of food.”

He said this productivity loss would be a drop of “about 1pc of global food production” and then “equates to about 9pc increase on food commodity prices globally”.

In response, Mr Crosby said could boost deforestation in other nations “of some of our most unique environmental habitats in the world to make up for that loss of food in the system”.

Strong regulation, community trust

Mr Crosby said the key to maintaining chemical access, alongside safeguarding the environment and social licence, was supporting a strong regulator in the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.

“We use a system where we use scientific risk assessment to know that we can use these products safety.

“We have a process in Australia where we have quite thorough regulatory assessment of that, and we all know Australian farmers are the best in the world and actually take up innovation and best practice.”

Mr Young said having a strong regulator will “reassure the general public that their food is safe”.

He said supporting and backing the APVMA was crucial to gaining the trust of consumers.

“As long as you can ensure that you’ve gained that trust of the general public and we’ve got a very strong regulator, that’s what we have to rely on,” Mr Young said.

Promise of precision agriculture

Mr Young said research by the GRDC and its partners had shown promising results for precision agriculture techniques that optimise rather than eliminate chemical use.

He said the integration of a GPS tool to enable growers to go to a 2cm steerage “alone had reduced the amount of chemistry that’s going on the ground” by reducing overlaps.

“Follow that with initially green-on-brown, which will pick up a weed and only spray one-tenth or one-hundredth of a paddock; both economic as well as environmental advantages there.”

Mr Young said industry was “on the cusp of green-on-green” technology which could broaden the system to be used on in-crop weeds.

“The algorithms are being written; they are not quite all there yet in every situation.”

He said some weed-crop combinations were more advanced than others, with the GRDC funding work to target a weed variety of lupins within a crop of lupins.

He said there was even scope to expand the work to incorporate a “laser, or some other type of heat source” to kill weeds.

“These are the innovations that will come with precision agriculture.”

Questions over biologicals

A relatively new option for managing pests and weeds was the expanding biologicals industry.

These products rely on active ingredients such as bacteria, fungi, and plant extracts — either living organisms or naturally occurring compounds — offering an alternative to synthetic chemicals in conventional pest and weed management.

Mr Young said there was some promise with this new industry, but more work was needed to ensure the products provided consistent results and could maintain this through the supply chain.

“We are looking at a range of biologicals, as are the life science companies, and where they have a good fit and provide a reasonable level of efficacy, can be packaged and transported and have some resilience on the shelf.

“These are all things that have to be organised to actually make a market.”

He said there were also questions about how these products should be treated by the APVMA and other regulators.

“The range of efficacy of those products is very varied and the consistency of efficacy is very varied.

“It’s an uncertain space at this point in time of how that should be regulated or should it be regulated and how it should be marketed.

“In the past, with traditional chemistry, we’re looking at 95-98pc management control in a trial.

“Some of this may be back down to 60pc.

“Should that be allowed on the market?”

Mr Crosby said it was conceivable that these products would be used as part of a suite of control measures, such as traditional chemicals, precision agriculture, and other farm-management techniques.

“To maintain that efficacy once you reach it, you need a complimentary range of products.

“It’s about how we use science to identify how we manage pests, how we rotate through those managements, so we have longevity of that outcome both for productive and environment reasons.”

Held on March 4 and 5 in Canberra, the ABARES Outlook event brought together influential Australian and international speakers and panelists from industry and government to discuss diverse issues shaping the future of agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries.

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